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M 



THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 



THE NATION 
AND THE EMPIRE 

Being a Collection of Speeches and 
Addresses: with an Introduction by 

LORD.MILNER, G.CB 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

LONDON 

CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 

1913 






By transfer 
U. S. Soldiers Home Lib, 

MAR 2 3 199? 



TO MY OLD FRIEND 

CHARLES W. BOYD 

WHO WAS THE FIRST TO URGE UPON ME 

THE PUBLICATION OF MY SPEECHES 

AND WHO GENEROUSLY UNDERTOOK THE LABORIOUS TASK 

OF SELECTING, ARRANGING, AND ANNOTATING 

SUCH OF THEM AS ARE HERE REPRODUCED 

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME 

WHICH BUT FOR HIS STIMULATING INFLUENCE 

AND DEVOTED AID 

WOULD NEVER HAVE COME INTO EXISTENCE 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION, 

London : March 29, 1897. Speech at a Farewell Banqmt 
before going to South Africa, . . . . 

Speeches during tenure of office of High Commissioner for 
South Africa — 
Graapf Reinet : March 3, 1898, 
Cape Town : June 24, 1899, 
April 12, 1900, 
April 20, 1900, 
May 22, 1900, 
June 28, 1900, 
November 9, 1900, 
December 11, 1900, 
May 7, 1901, . 
London : May 26, 1901, 

„ The Guildhall : July 23, 1901, 
Cape Town: September 2, 1901, 
Makitzbueg : October 15, 1901, 
Durban : October 21, 1901, . 
Johannesburg : January 8, 1902, 
„ June 8, 1902, 

„ June 17, 1902, 

June 25, 1902, 
July 29, 1902, 
May 28, 1904, 
Pretoria : March 22, 1905, 
Johannesburg: March 31, 1905, 



PAOS 

xi 



London, Queen's Hall, Langham Place : January 9, 1906 
Persecution of the Jews in Russia, . . 

House of Lords : February 26, 1906. The Transvaal and 
Orange River Colonies, 

House op Lords : March 27, 1906. Land Settlement in 
South Africa, ..... 



ft 
12 
16 
19 
20 
22 
26 
28 
32 
35 
39 
41 
42 
44 
48 
68 
58 
61 
6$ 
65 
68 
77 



92 

93 

109 



viii SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



PAOB 



London: May 24, 1906. Empire Day, . . .116 

House of Lords : July 10, 1906. Cost of National Service, 123 
„ „ November 14, 1906. British Settlers in 

South Africa, . . . . . .125 

Manchester: December 14, 1906. The Imperialist Creed, 135 
Wolverhampton : December 17, 1906. A political 

Ishmaelite,' . . . . . .152 

Church House, Westminster: March 9, 1907. South 

African Railway Mission, . . , .163 

Kensington Town Hall: March 15, 1907. National Service, 164 
Guildhall : April 23, 1907. Empire Education, . . 171 

Burlington House, London: May 16, 1907. Oxford 

University Fund, . . . . .173 

Grocers' Hall, London: May 29, 1907. Freedom of City 

Companies, . . . . . .174 

York : May 30, 1907. South Africa and the Consolidation 

of the Empire, . . . . . .175 

House of Lords: June 25, 1907. Territorial and Reserve 

Forces Bill, . . . . . .188 

TuNBRiDGE Wells : October 24, 1907. Tarif Reform, . 195 
Guildford; October 29, 1907. A Constructive Policy, . 209 
Edinburgh : November 13, 1907. Geography and Statecraft, 218 

„ November 15, 1907. Unionists and the Einpire, 234 

Rugby : November 19, 1907. Unionists and Social Reform, 243 
Oxford: December 5, 1907. Sweated Industries, . . 253 

Mansion House: December 6, 1907. Cape Town Cathedral 

Fund, ....... 260 

United Empire Club: December 18, 1907. Missionaries of 

Empire, ' . . . . . . 263 

House of Lords : May 1 3, 1 908. Land Values {Scotland) Bill, 266 
House of LorDs : May 20, 1908. Preferential Trade, . 267 
Imperial South African Association : May 21, 1908. 

The Friends of South Africa, . . . .279 

Weybridge : May 22, 1908. National Service and the Law, 287 
EoYAL Colonial Institute: June 16, 1908. The Two 

Empires, . . . . . . 289 

Constitutional Club: June 26, 1908. Tarif Reform and 

National Security, . . • . . 300 

The Canadian Club, Vancouver: October 9, 1908. Im- 
perial Unity — External Advantages, . . . 302 



CONTENTS 

The Canadian Club, Winnipeg: Octobee 15, 1908. Im- 
perial Unity — Internal Benefits, 

The Canadian Club, Toronto : October 27, 1908 
Practical Suggestions, .... 

The Canadian Club, Ottawa : October 31, 1908. South 
African Development, .... 

Board op Trade, Montreal : November 1, 1908. Pre 
ferential Trade, .... 

Women's Canadian Club, Montreal: November 2, 1908 
Imperialism and Social Reform, 

The Canadian Club, Montreal: November 3, 1908 
Conditions of Closer Union, 

Nottingham: April 19, 1909. National Peril and 
National Service, .... 

Bath: April 30, 1909. Preparation against War, . 

Bristol: May 4, 1909. Eating up Capital, 

London: May 14, 1909. The Work of the Industrial Laiv 
Committee, . ' . . . 

London: June 24, 1909. ^ Communis Patria,' 

Poole: November 16, 1909. Tariff Reform and National 
Policy, ...... 

House of Lords : November 24, 1909. The Budget of 1909. 

Glasgow: November 26, 1909. The House of Lords and 
Duty, ...... 

Stirling: November 27, 1909. The Budget versxis Tariff 
Reform, ..... 

Eamsgate : December 14, 1909. The Church's Work abroad. 

HuDDERSFiELD : December 17, 1909. Taxing the Foreigner 

Stockport: December 18, 1909. Single Chamber Government 

Cardiff: December 23, 1909. Tivo Conflicting Policies, 

London: April 28, 1910. Imperial Organisation, . 

Liverpool: June 7, 1910. Croion Colonies, 

Canterbury : October 28, 1910. National Service- 
National Sectirity, 

The Canadian Club, Halifax : September 26, 1912. Local 
and Imperial Politics, . . • . 

Authors Club : December 2, 1912. Empire Citizenship, 

East London: December 9, 1912. The Two Nations, 

INDEX, ...... 



IX 

FAOE 

310 

320 

330 

341 

352 

359 

365 
374 
380 

382 
386 

388 
390 

400 

401 
413 
416 
427 
438 
452 
461 

469 

478 
487 
494 

501 



' Une nation est une dme, un principe spiritiiel. Deux 
choses qui, a vrai dire, ne font qu'une, constituent cette 
dme, c6 principe spirituel. L'une est dans le pass^, 
I'autre dans le present. L'v/ne est la possession d^un riche 
legs de souvenirs, I'autre le consentement actuel, le de'sir 
de vivre ensemble, la volonte de faire valoir Vheritage qu'on 
a re^u indivis. Un passe' hirdique, des grands hommes, de 
la gloire (fentends la veritable), voila le capital social sur 
lequel on assied une idee nationale. Avoir des gloires 
communes dans le passe, une volonte commune dans le 
present, avoir fait des grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en 
faire encore, voila la condition essentielle poxir etre un 
peuple. On aime en proportion des sacrifices qvCon a fails, 
des maux qu'on a soufferts. On aime la maison, qu'on a 
bdtie et qu'on transmet. Le chant spartiate " Nous sommes 
ce que vous futes, nous serons ce que vous etes," c'est dans 
sa simplicite I'hymne abrege de toute pa^n'e.'— Kenan. 



INTRODUCTION 

The speeches and addresses contained in this volume cover 
a period of sixteen years — from the date of my appoint- 
ment as High Commissioner for South Africa to the present 
time. The majority of them are just occasional speeches, 
such as any pubUc man is constantly obliged to make — 
often with inadequate preparation and sometimes with 
none — ^to deal with an incident arising in the course of his 
work, or with the latest phase of a controversy in which 
he may happen to be engaged. In a few cases only, such as 
the Manchester Speech of December 1906 (pp. 135-152) or 
the series of addresses delivered in Canada in 1908 (pp. 302- 
365), was I in a position to develop my ideas in a more or 
less complete and systematic manner. Under these circum- 
stances, anything of more lasting value which the book may 
contain is necessarily embedded in a good deal of matter 
of merely transitory interest. Whatever unity there may 
be in such a series of incidental and fragmentary discourses 
can only be a unity of spirit, due to the fact that, throughout 
all these years, and indeed for a much longer period, my 
public activities have been dominated by a single desire 
— that of working for the integrity and consolidation of 
the British Empire. I should be the last to claim that I 
have always been successful in keeping this, my main 
object, free from entanglement with secondary and more 
questionable political aims. But I have at least always 
tried to do so. And in judging of the measure of my success 
or failure it is fair to bear in mind the special difficulties 
with which, in the present stage of our constitutional 
development, any man, who aspires to be a servant of the 
Empire, has to contend. 

An interesting discussion, initiated by my friend Mr. 



xii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

E. B. Sargent, was carried on for some months last year 
in the columns of United Empire on the meaning of the 
words ' British citizenship.' The upshot appeared to be 
that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as citizen- 
ship of the Empire. It is correct to speak of a ' British 
subject.' That term applies to the vast majority of 
those who are born, and to all those who are natural- 
ised, in any of the dominions of our sovereign. But 
' British citizen ' is, according to the jurists, only a ' rhetori- 
cal expression,' at any rate in the sense in which it is com- 
monly used, as signifying membership of a body-politic 
coextensive with those dominions. And yet men exist, 
and happily in increasing numbers, who are conscious of 
such membership, who mean something definite when they 
say that the Empire is their ' country,' the State to which 
they feel themselves to belong, and to which their highest 
allegiance is due. The Crown is in their eyes a sacred 
symbol of a bond, a fellowship, which may be based upon, 
but does not end with, subjection to a common sovereign. 
Loyalty to the Empire is to them the supreme political duty. 
The existence, the growth, the potency of this sentiment is 
a momentous fact, though legal and juridical conceptions 
may not have expanded to correspond with it, and no word 
has yet been coined to describe membership of the body- 
politic towards which that loyalty is felt. The barbarous 
term ' Britisher ' is perhaps an attempt in that direction, 
but, besides being barbarous, it is not wide enough. For 
the time being we must, despite the jurists, faU back 
upon ' citizen of the Empire,' for want of a better phrase. 

But loyalty to the Empire, however inspiring as a motive 
of action, is not easy to practise at the present time. And 
it never will be, as long as the conception of the Empire 
as a single State is not embodied in any institutions other 
than the Crown. In actual fact there is no such thing as 
an ' Imperial Service,' which any man can enter. In a 
sense indeed the service of a part is the service of the 
whole, if one chooses so to regard it. But that is a matter 
of individual feeling. Strictly speaking, the public servant 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

in any part of the Empire belongs, under the King, to the 
particular government which has appointed him, and no one 
of the King's governments, not even the British, is in 
reality a government of the whole Empire. There are no 
doubt certain officers of State, the British Prime Minister 
for instance, or the Foreign Secretary, the scope of whose 
authority is so wide, that they may almost be regarded 
as Imperial officers. But it is not essential that they 
should so regard themselves, or should discharge their 
duties in that spirit. They may owe their positions entirely 
to their pre-eminence in the local politics of the United 
Kingdom. They might retain them, even if all the rest 
of the Empire thoroughly disapproved of their line of action. 

Still greater is the difficulty of serving the Empire as a 
private citizen, however much a man may desire to do so — 
I mean, of course, of serving it by direct political action. 
We can aU serve it indirectly by cultivating Imperial senti- 
ment, or simply by living useful and honourable lives. But 
in that sense any man may serve any community of which 
he is a member. I am speaking now of service more immedi- 
ate and tangible — of activity in the sphere of public life. 
In that sphere the service of the Empire is beset by pitfalls, 
for in every part of it the same men and the same bodies are 
deaUng now with local and now with Imperial affairs, and 
while the latter may be essentially the more important, it is 
dexterity in the former which speUs success and power. And 
no doubt the successful local politician may turn out to have 
the qualities of an Imperial statesman. Fortunately he 
sometimes does. But he may equally well be quite deficient 
in the breadth of view and width of sympathy which are 
requisite for the handhng of Imperial affairs. And in any 
case, whatever his own capacity and inclination, he is never 
free to deal with those affairs on their merits. They are, 
for him, inevitably mixed up with the local party game. 
And until the two classes of questions can be dealt with 
by separate authorities, this always must be so. 

And meanwhile what are the opportunities before any 
man in a humbler position who yet desires, as a good 



xiv THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

' citizen of the Empire,' to take his part in Imperial affairs ? 
He may write academic treatises, which nobody will read. 
He may join associations ' of a non-party character,' to 
promote this or that object of Imperial interest, and help 
to pass platonic resolutions, which will be as water on a 
duck's back to the Minister to whom they are forwarded. 
But if he desires to achieve anything practical, he must 
throw in his lot with some political party, and earn, by 
vigorous swashbuckhng in the field of party politics, for 
which he may have neither aptitude nor liking, the chance 
of occasionally being listened to on the questions which he 
really cares about and understands. 

Do not let me be thought to suggest that Imperial 
affairs are necessarily of greater dignity and importance 
than local affairs, or that a man is better employed in con- 
cerning himself with the former rather than with the latter. 
The word ' Imperial ' has an imposing sound, but not every 
question properly so described is necessarily of the first 
importance. And on the other hand there may be local 
controversies, in any part of the Empire, which are of 
supreme moment to the welfare of that part, and even of 
the whole. I have no idea of extolling interest in the one, 
or depreciating interest in the other. The point is, that 
Imperial and local affairs are different in character, and that 
the same men are not generally, or often, equally well 
qualified, by inclination and experience, to deal with both. 
A system, which makes successful activity in the one sphere 
the only avenue to influence in the other, involves enormous 
waste. 

And that is not the only, or the greatest evil arising 
from the present subordination of Imperial to local politics. 
Its worst consequence is that it carries the corroding influ- 
ence of party spirit into a region in which existing party 
divisions are wholly out of place. Those divisions owe 
their origin to conflicts of opinion about domestic questions. 
It is true that they have a tendency, even in the field of 
their origin, to outlive the differences of principle from which 
they sprang, and that the party fight thus becomes a mere 



INTRODUCTION xv 

scramble for power. It is true that in that scramble men 
are constantly compelled to sacrifice their convictions to 
the imperious call of party discipline. But with regard to 
domestic questions, or at least some of them, party distinc- 
tions still have some vestige of meaning. With regard to 
almost any Imperial question they have absolutely none. 
And yet no sooner does any Imperial problem assume a 
character of real urgency, no sooner does it pass out of the 
region of theoretical discussion into that of practical politics, 
than it is almost certain to become the shuttlecock of party. 
For the Government of the day is then obliged to take some 
line about it. That line may be determined by all sorts of 
considerations having very little to do with the matter itself. 
But whatever line the Government takes, the leaders of the 
Opposition will be tempted to cast about for a different 
hne, and it is ten to one that they will be successful in their 
quest. And the rank and jfile on either side will feel in duty 
bound to follow, though it is out of aU reason to suppose 
that if left to form a genuine opinion — on an entirely new 
subject — they would find themselves arrayed in two con- 
flicting groups, precisely coinciding with the two normal 
parties. And this edifying process is hkely to be going 
on simultaneously in every part of the Empire, which 
enjoys the blessing of Parliamentary government, with 
regard to every new question of urgency that affects them 
all. The result may be good or bad. It is hardly likely 
to be good. But whatever it may be, it will certainly 
not be the same result, which would be arrived at, if 
men everywhere were considering the question on its 
merits. In that case there would often be general agree- 
ment, where \^ e now have artificial differences and bitter 
controversy. And even if the question was one which 
aroused real differences of opinion, men would take sides 
over it in accordance with their genuine views about the 
matter itself, and not on the lines of pre-existing, and in 
this connection meaningless, party divisions. The decision 
would then at least represent the true opinion, right or wrong, 
of a majority of the citizens of the Empire. That opinion 



xvi THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

would not, as now, be liable to be distorted and submerged 
in a whirlpool of ulterior motives and irrelevant prejudices. 

This is not a fancy picture. The reality of the evils just 
described can be illustrated by what has happened, and is 
even now happening, with regard to matters of supreme 
importance to the whole Empire. Let us look at two 
questions, the magnitude of which is beyond dispute — the 
development of inter-Imperial trade, and the naval defence 
of all His Majesty's dominions. How have these fared 
when proposals affecting them, which were at least intended 
to promote the common good, and therefore entitled to dis- 
passionate consideration, have been brought into the arena 
of local party politics ? 

Take first the Trade question. Ten years ago Mr. Cham- 
berlain, holding, as he did, a unique position in the eyes of 
the whole British world, regarded everywhere as an essen- 
tially Imperial and not merely a British statesman, pro- 
pounded to the people of the United Kingdom a new de- 
parture in commercial policy, expressly designed to increase 
the economic interdependence of the different parts of the 
Empire. For he believed, as all statesmen have beUeved 
in all ages but the present, and still believe in every country 
but our own, that the bond of mutually profitable trade is 
a powerful factor in promoting political unity. But the 
particular measures, which he advocated with that end in 
view, gave a great shock to the fiscal principles, which had 
for some time past been generally accepted in Great Britain. 
That his proposals should meet with opposition, and give 
rise to controversy, was perfectly natural and indeed inevit- 
able. And had the controversy, which was certain to arise, 
been conducted on anything like rational lines, the result, 
whether favourable or unfavourable to the proposals them- 
selves, might have been of great pubhc advantage. It is 
always well for any community to review from time to time 
the traditional foundations of its policy, and consider whether 
the reasons which led to the adoption of that policy still 
hold good, or whether altered circumstances make them 
no longer valid. And in the particular case under discussion 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

there were exceptionally strong grounds for a reconsidera- 
tion of the principles of our British fiscal system. The 
growth of other parts of the Empire, and especially of the 
self-governing Dominions, had immensely increased their 
importance to us, as markets for our goods, to say nothing 
of their political importance as pillars of the Imperial 
fabric. But at the same time their ideas about trade and 
taxation diverged widely from those prevalent in Great 
Britain. All more or less Protectionist, and resolved to 
favour the products of their own industry in the com- 
petition with imported goods, the Dominions were never- 
theless agreed in giving, among imports, an advantage to 
those coming from other parts of the Empire as against 
those brought from foreign countries. And they were also 
agreed, and very strongly, in the desire that the same prin- 
ciple — discrimination between goods of foreign and goods of 
British Imperial origin — should be adopted by the Mother 
Country. How that might be done — it was admittedly 
difficult — and whether the Mother Country could afford to 
do it at all, were necessarily, as they aU recognised, questions 
for the people of Great Britain alone to decide. Their con- 
tention only came to this, that, if the Mother Country did 
see her way to take a step in the desired direction, the con- 
sequences, not merely in the increase of trade and inter- 
course, but in the promotion of closer pohtical relationship, 
would be momentous. On that point they were all unani- 
mous, and the strength of their conviction on the subject was 
impressive. 

The situation thus created was clearly one which demanded 
the earnest attention of British statesmen. Mr. Chamber- 
lain was, alike by his official position and by his personal 
sympathies, in close touch with the feelings of the people 
of the Dominions. In his constant striving to bind them 
by every possible tie to the Mother Country and to one an- 
other, he was gradually converted to their view about the 
best means of developing inter-Imperial trade, and led to 
propose a modification of the British fiscal system. What- 
ever the merits or defects of that proposal, its object was 



xviii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

undoubtedly laudable. It was prompted by motives of 
Imperial patriotism. By no possibility could it serve any 
partisan purpose, indeed its author must have been weU 
aware of the risk which it involved to his party, and to his 
own position as a party leader. Perhaps he hoped that 
in breaking entirely fresh ground he would open a new era 
in our political life, and that, if he failed to convince some 
of his own associates, he would, on the broad Imperial issue, 
gain the support of the mass of his fellow-countrymen, 
irrespective of party. But the sequel was destined to show 
the impossibility, under present conditions, of keeping 
party considerations from exercising a decisive influence 
upon the fate of any political movement however novel, 
however remote from current topics of party controversy. 

To start such a movement effectively required the inter- 
vention of a man of first-rate eminence in public life, of a 
party leader. No mere theorist or philosopher, however 
able, no old public servant, however distinguished, no 
political free-lance, however bold, could have got the British 
people to take the proposed innovation seriously. ' There 
is no pain like the pain of a new idea,' and if the man in the 
street is to tolerate such an intrusion on his peace of mind, it 
must come to him with the authority of one of those familiar 
names, which a thousand speeches and leading articles have 
taught him to love or to execrate. But unfortunately 
the sponsorship, which is necessary to give the new idea 
a chance of being seriously considered at all, is likely at the 
same time to cause the consideration of it, from the very 
outset, to be tainted with bias. And that was the fate 
of the scheme of Imperial Preference propounded by Mr. 
Chamberlain. It burst like a bombshell in the camp 
of his friends, causing a deep cleavage of opinion, which 
stiU remains, though in the long run the majority of them 
bowed to his authority and accepted it. But their assent 
was in many cases born of loyalty rather than of con- 
viction, and Mr. Chamberlain's poHcy was sometimes ill 
served by the advocacy of men who had not fully grasped 
its principle and its object, and who clung to the letter 
of his proposals without appreciating their spirit. And, 



INTRODUCTION xix 

on the other hand, his pohtical opponents feU upon those 
proposals tooth and nail, because they were his. ' Theirs 
not to reason why,' nor to pause and consider what effect 
might be produced upon the growing sentiment of Imperial 
loyalty in the Dominions by the unmeasured denunciation 
of a policy, which owed its' origin to that sentiment on 
their part, with which they all sympathised, and which had 
been adopted by Mr. Chamberlain for the express purpose 
of creating a basis of economic co-operation between them 
and the Mother Country. Considerations of this nature 
could not be expected to weigh with party politicians, when 
they saw an opportunity of tripping up a formidable ad- 
versary. Mr. Chamberlain's own followers were divided. 
Some features of his scheme were unpopular to begin with, 
and could easily be made more so by the unscrupulous 
exaggeration in which party pugihsts delight. It was the 
chance of a lifetime. And so the broad and far-reaching 
question of principle, which Mr. Chamberlain had raised, 
was hardly discussed. The reasons, and they were grave 
reasons, which had led him to risk everything for the adop- 
tion of Imperial Preference, were treated as of no account. 
AU the rhetorical batteries of the Opposition were concen- 
trated upon those details of his scheme which lent them- 
selves to the creation of unreasoning prejudice and exagger- 
ated alarm. A duty which might, or might not, have added 
Jd. to the price of the quartern loaf, was represented as 
threatening millions of people with famine. The idea, that 
closer commercial relations between the different parts of 
the Empire were of value in promoting amity and co-opera- 
tion in other respects, was denounced as reliance on ' sordid 
bonds.' But I have no wish to go at length into the history 
of this unhappy controversy. I only refer to it to illustrate 
the troubles which spring from our having no proper forum 
for the discussion of Imperial relations. All that happened 
in this case was bound to happen, the moment that the new 
issue raised by Mr. Chamberlain was sucked into the vortex 
of our local party struggle. It was inevitable, under these 
circumstances, that discussion should rage over those aspects 
of it which were of immediate electioneering value, and 



XX THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

that the wider and more important question of principle 
should be smothered in the hubbub. 

And the consequence is that the people of Great Britain 
have never yet had a fair chance of looking at the policy of 
Preference in an atmosphere unclouded by the dust of the 
party scrimmage. They have been led to take sides, 
in the main on party lines, with regard to a particular 
proposal — for or against the imposition of certain customs 
duties, and especially of one such duty — that of 2s. a 
quarter on foreign wheat — the importance of which has 
been enormously exaggerated on both sides. But the prin- 
ciple of Imperial Preference does not stand or fall with the 
approval or rejection of that or of any particular duty : 
indeed it is not confined to the domain of Customs at all. 
Neither is there anything in the principle itself which should 
make it acceptable to a man because he is a Conservative 
or inacceptable because he is a Liberal. The first practical 
step towards the reahsation of it was taken in Canada by 
a Liberal government. It has found favour in Australia 
and New Zealand with parties and governments more 
Liberal, and indeed more Radical, than any which have 
ever been in power in the United Kingdom. Why should 
it have come to be regarded as a doctrine, which every 
Liberal in the United Kingdom is bound to abhor ? The 
answer can only be found in the accidents of party warfare, 
which have prevented him from approaching the subject 
with an open mind. With the solitary but memorable 
exception of Mr. Lloyd George, who at the Colonial Confer- 
ence of 1907 paid an eloquent tribute to the principle of 
Preference, which has unfortunately never been followed 
by practical action,^ the party at present in power have 

^ 'We heartily concur,' Mr. Lloyd George said, 'in the view which has 
teen presented by the Colonial Ministers, that the Empire would be a 
great gainer if much of the products now purchased from foreign countries 
could be produced and purchased within the Empire. In Britain we have 
the greatest market in the world. We are the greatest purchasers of pro- 
duce raised or manufactured outside our own boundaries. A very large 
proportion of this produce could very well be raised in the Colonies, and 
any reasonable and workable plan that would tend to increase the propor- 
tion of the produce which is bought by us from the Colonies, and by the 
Colonies from us and from each other, must necessarily enhance the 
resources of the Empire as a whole. A considerable part of the surplus 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

displayed a total inability to look beyond the particular 
proposals made by Mr. Chamberlain, The result can only 
be to give the impression that something like half the 
people of the United Kingdom are resolutely opposed to 
any attempt to consolidate the Empire by reciprocal con- 
cessions in respect of trade, and are therefore in direct 
conflict, on this subject, with the cherished opinions of their 
kith and kin across the seas. If this were indeed the case, 
it would be a great disaster. But no man is entitled by 
anything that has yet happened to say that it is the case. 
For my own part I firmly beheve that this impression is a 
false one, and that on the broad question, whether it is or 
is not right and wise dehberately to direct as much trade 
as possible into Imperial channels, and to aim at making 
the Empire economically self-sufficient, there is no con- 
flict between the sentiment of the majority of the British 
people and the sentiment of Canada, Australia, and New 
Zealand. It is one thing to dissent from a particular 
method of promoting Imperial in preference to foreign 
trade, quite another to be out of sympathy with that object 
altogether. PersonaUy I hold that even the particular 
proposals made by Mr. Chamberlain have never received 
unbiased consideration. But it is perfectly certain that his 
fundamental idea has been so obscured by the mists of 
party controversy, that it has never had a chance of being 
generally understood, and that in consequence many oppor- 
tunities of increasing trade and intercourse within the 
Empire have been and are being thrown away. 

Turning now from the question of Imperial Trade to that 
of Imperial Defence, let us cast a glance at what is at present 
going on in Canada. Here is an even clearer illustration 
of the effect of party divisions in creating artificial conflicts 

population of the United Kingdom, which now goes to foreign lands in 
search of a livelihood, might then find it to its profit to pitch its tents 
somewhere under the Flag, and the Empire would gain in riches of material 
and of men. We agree with our Colonial comrades, that all this is worth 
concerted efforts, even if the effort at the outset costs us something. The 
federation of free Commonwealths is worth making some sacrifice for. One 
never knows when its strength may he essential to the great cause of human 
freedom, and that is priceless.' — (Minutes of the Proceedings of the Colon- 
ial Conference, 1907. Cd. 3523, p. 362.) 



xxii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

of opinion over a matter with which they have really 
nothing to do, and thereby stultifying the desires of a whole 
people. For whatever may be, or might be, the true 
opinion of the people of the United Kingdom about Im- 
perial Preference, there can be no doubt what the majority 
of Canadians wish to see their country doing with regard to 
the naval defence of the Empire. Their minds are seriously 
bent upon taking an effective share in that defence, and 
on setting about it in no half-hearted or niggardly fashion. 
This feeling is not confined to the party at present in office, 
who are practically unanimous on the subject. It is equally 
strong in a large section, perhaps the majority, of the party 
at present in Opposition. For even the French Canadians 
on the Opposition side, though undoubtedly less enthusiastic 
about a naval policy than their British confederates, are yet 
by no means intractable with regard to it. There is no 
doubt a stubborn minority, which is keen to prevent any- 
thing being done. But the bulk of the French-Canadian 
Liberals were prepared only two years ago to accept with 
a good grace the naval programme put forward by their 
own party leaders. On the whole, it may truly be said that 
there is as large a measure of agreement, among Canadians 
generally, in favour of doing something substantial to 
increase the strength of the Empire at sea, as can ever 
reasonably be hoped for on any question of such magnitude 
and novelty in a community naturally disputatious, as all 
democratic British communities are. 

But does it follow that something substantial will be done ? 
By no means. Themindof the nation may be made up. The 
majority of its members may be essentially agreed. But 
this general agreement as to the end may nevertheless be 
defeated by a party squabble over the means. At the out- 
set, for a brief moment, the working of the political machine 
reflected the general agreement. Little more than three 
years ago the Parhament at Ottawa passed a unanimous 
resolution in favour of participation by Canada in the naval 
defence of the Empire. But then the question was brand- 
new, and the demon of party-spirit had not had time to make 
havoc of it. He is very ingenious in setting people by the 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

ears and in inducing them, even when they want the same 
thing, to fall out over the way of doing it, and so grievously 
to exaggerate their differences of opinion about methods, 
that in the end they care more about their conflicting plans 
for attaining the common object, than they do about the 
object itself. This is precisely the danger which threatens 
the Navy Question in Canada at the present time. The 
game of manoeuvring for position, with a view to the next 
General Election, is in full swing. And thus many politicians 
are busy trying to persuade themselves, and a reluctant 
country, that there is some vital and essential difference 
between the policy of the two parties with regard to 
naval defence. As a matter of fact there is no such 
vital difference at all. The only real antagonism is 
between the great majority of Canadians, who want 
to see something done, and the minority, who do not. 
Among the former there are no doubt many differences 
of view with regard to details. There are many shades 
of opinion, but there is nothing Hke a genuine contrast 
of two opposite convictions, miraculously coincident with 
the line of party cleavage. The Conservatives are not in 
principle opposed to ' a Canadian Navy,' and they are 
quite as anxious as the Liberals that, whatever Canada 
does for the defence of the Empire, she should do not as a 
tributary but as a partner State. The Liberals, for all 
their nervousness about ' autonomy,' are just as desirous 
as the Conservatives that the Canadian Navy should help 
to strengthen the Empire and not merely to defend Canada. 
There is thus plenty of material for agreement on a common 
national policy, and all the more so as the present Prime 
Minister of the Dominion has shown himself capable of deal- 
ing with this big question on big hnes, and has impressed 
not only Canada but the whole Empire by his largeness 
of view and sincerity of purpose. But in spite of these 
favourable circumstances, it is only too hkely that the 
question will continue to be made the occasion for an em- 
bittered party fight, and that the Empire will lose, if not 
the material assistance, at any rate the still more valuable 
moral support, which hearty and unanimous action on 



xxiv THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

the part of Canada would have given it. Such a result 
would no doubt be contrary to the desires of the best men 
of both parties, and it would misrepresent the true feeling 
of the Canadian people, who are not by any means divided, 
on this subject, into two hostile camps of nearly equal 
numbers, and who will detest being made to appear thus 
divided to the outside world. There have been many 
evidences of the feehng of repulsion with which they would 
regard such a spectacle. Before the opening of Parhament 
last autumn, memorials bearing the signatures of influential 
men of both political parties were addressed from various 
parts of Canada to the Premier and the leader of the Opposi- 
tion, urging them to meet in conference on the Navy Ques- 
tion and to try and arrange a settlement, which would 
obviate a party fight. And since Mr. Borden has unfolded 
his scheme, there have been repeated attempts, both in and 
out of Parhament, to arrive at a compromise which might 
give expression to the substantial unanimity of the bulk of 
the Canadian people — to their genuine desire to discharge, 
by whatever means, their duty to the Empire. There is 
something pathetic in this effort of a sincere and noble 
popular sentiment to escape from being distorted and mutil- 
ated by the normal operation of the party machine. But 
there is nothing novel or siu^prising in such an experience. 
Laocoon wresthng with the serpents is no unfitting symbol 
of the desperate struggle which Imperial patriotism has 
to maintain against the hydras of particularism and party 
spirit that everywhere enlace and threaten to throttle it. 

Not that the Imperial Movement is destined to meet 
with the fate of Laocoon. Its vitality is far too great 
and persistent. The Imperialists of my generation have 
indeed met with many discouragements. They have seen 
chance after chance thrown away. Over and over again 
questions of great Imperial interest have been pushed off 
the board to make room for matters of infinitely minor 
importance, or, worse still, have been used as footballs in the 
party scrimmage. Imperial interests have suffered griev- 
ously from neglect ; they have suffered even more from the 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

wrong sort of attention. And yet Imperial sentiment 
and interest in Imperial problems, a sense of the solidarity 
of the scattered communities of the British race, have been 
growing steadily all the time. It is this fact, which gives 
hope of a better future, especially if we bear in mind that 
the distresses of the present time are due largely to defects 
of machinery — to our obsolete arrangements for the con- 
duct of Imperial affairs. But where good- will and a right 
spirit exist, such defects cannot be incapable of remedy. 

And, as a matter of fact, the remedy is not far to seek, 
though our deep-seated disUke of fundamental change makes 
us slow to face it. Essentially what is wanted is discrimina- 
tion — the separation of Imperial from local interests in 
the sphere of poUtics and administration. The present 
chaotic jumble is injurious to both, but it is Imperial in- 
terests which are the greatest sufferers. They suffer from 
the lack of time and energy to devote to them on the part 
of Parliaments and Governments absorbed in other business. 
They suffer even more fatally from their entanglement with 
local pontics. And yet the local autonomy, which aU com- 
munities of the British race cherish, and justly cherish, so 
much — the right to manage or mismanage their own affairs, 
free from external interference — depends ultimately upon 
their capacity to stand together and present a united 
front to any possible aggressor. But for that end we 
require an Imperial Constitution, providing for the separa- 
tion of those branches of pubHc business which, Uke Foreign 
Affairs, Defence and Ocean Communications, are essenti- 
ally Imperial, from those which are mainly or wholly local, 
and for the management of the former by a new authority, 
representative of aU parts of the Empire, but undistracted 
by the work and the controversies which are peculiar to 
any single part. We have already, in the United Kingdom, 
differentiated downwards, by relegating to new organs of 
government, such as Borough and County Councils, a 
great many duties formerly performed, or not performed, 
by the central Government. And the effect has undoubt- 
edly been salutary. We have yet to differentiate upwards. 



xxvi THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

throughout the Empire by entrusting to a body constituted 
ad hoc the matters of common interest, which are at 
present partially and spasmodically managed, or wholly 
neglected, by the so-caUed ' Imperial ' Parliament and the 
Government dependent on it, and to some, though to a much 
smaller extent, by the Parhaments and Governments of the 
Dominions. When that day comes, it does not indeed 
foUow that Imperial affairs wiU be wisely conducted. But 
they will certainly stand a better chance of it than they 
do at present, for they will be in the hands of men whose 
principal business in life will be to attend to them, and 
who will have been chosen for that work because of their 
real or supposed capacity for dealing with it. And at the 
same time there will be a better chance of public opinion, 
in every part of the Empire, with regard to matters of 
Imperial interest, finding true expression. For it will 
then be possible, as it is not possible at present, for A 
and B, who may belong to different parties, and yet may 
be in complete agreement about questions of Imperial 
Defence or Trade, to oppose one another on the subjects 
on which they differ, and yet to co-operate with regard to 
the matters on which they are agreed. At the present time, 
if the Government or the party with which a man may be 
in general sympathy on questions of Home Politics, is at 
the same time pursuing a course in Imperial affairs, which 
appears to him unwise and even disastrous, what is he 
to do ? In order to be represented in the one direction, 
he must submit to being entirely misrepresented in the 
other : or else he must acquiesce in being reduced to com- 
plete impotence. It is only by a separation of the two 
spheres that a way can be found out of this dilemma. 

No doubt a great constitutional change of this kind is not 
easily effected. In any case it can only come about by 
successive stages. And it wiU never come about at all, 
unless a powerful and long-sustained movement of public 
opinion in all parts of the Empire gives the necessary 
impetus, and compels politicians to bestir themselves in 
a matter at once so difficult, and so alien to their ordinary 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

preoccupations. But then such a movement is now, as 
it seems to me, well on its way, and is steadily gaining 
in momentum. I can hardly be mistaken in this, for 
I have watched the currents " of opinion on this subject 
for nearly forty years, and that with critical eyes and in no 
very sanguine temper. My own conviction indeed has 
never wavered, but I have had many doubts whether it 
was destined to be widely shared. Latterly, however, 
despite occasional set-backs, the believers in Imperial 
Unity cannot but have felt that their bark was floating 
upon a steadily rising tide. Progress in such a movement 
is never continuous, and is peculiarly difficult to gauge. 
But when I look back upon the course of affairs since my 
College days, I cannot but realise the immense increase of 
interest everywhere in the problems of Empire, and the yet 
greater and more significant change in the popular attitude 
with regard to them. That change of mind has been much 
more marked in the last fifteen years than in the preceding 
five and twenty, more marked in the last five than in the 
preceding ten. And it is due to no accidental or temporary 
influences. It is the inevitable outcome of closer intercourse 
between different parts of the Empire, leading to a better 
appreciation of their importance to one another, and of 
all that the Empire stands for in the world. And every 
year this intercourse increases, and its lessons sink more 
deeply into the minds of men. The decisive factor in the 
case is the question of time. It is inconceivable that the 
British race, which, with all its faults, has never been 
lacking in fundamental sanity, should throw away the 
advantages of its unique position in the world, of its hold 
on five continents, of its possession of economic resources 
more vast and varied than any that have ever before fallen 
under a single control, when once it has fully reahsed what 
that position means. But its meaning is not easily brought 
home to a number of separate democracies, living at a dis- 
tance from one another, confronted with very different local 
problems, and each naturally absorbed in its own local 
affairs. And until it has been brought home to them, until 



xxviii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

their mental horizon has been widened by the growth of 
intercourse, and the education of contact with the outside 
world, which tiU recently was the exclusive privilege of a 
very Hmited class, there is great danger of their drifting 
apart, to say nothing of the danger of their being severed 
by the intrigues, or the direct hostile impact, of jealous rivals. 
The history of South Africa is a case in point. With a shrug 
of the shoulders, not realising what it meant, we allowed 
an alien flag to be hoisted within the British ring-fence, 
thereby inviting the intrusion of foreign influences, and 
we were soon within an ace of the permanent separation 
of all South Africa from the rest of the Empire. It needed 
a long and critical struggle, and enormous sacrifices, to 
preserve even the possibihty of that country becoming 
some day a free member of a British Imperial Union. 

Time fights on the side of Imperialism, but the question 
has always been whether enough time would be accorded to 
us. The duty of Imperialists in my day has been to hold 
the fort during the long indispensable process of education — 
to try and prevent our Imperial heritage from being dissi- 
pated before its meaning and value could be generally 
understood. It has not been in their power materially to 
hasten that process, or to forge new political bonds of Empire, 
the necessity of which was not apparent to the majority 
of their contemporaries. All that they have been able 
to do is to preserve the materials of future union from 
being wasted or impaired. The erection of the edifice itself 
has been reserved for another and a more fortunate 
generation. 

Yet there is no reason why these forerunners should feel 
dispirited. They have been privileged to watch the immense 
progress of the idea to which they have given years of 
service, though they may not live to see its final triumph. 
They are pioneers, and, Hke all pioneers, they have some- 
times taken wrong turns and followed tracks which have 
not reaUy led them any nearer to their goal. Those who 
come after them will profit not only by their discoveries, 
but by their mistakes. But, when all is said and done, 
the goal is nearer than it was. 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

It is true, that a real constitution of the Empire no 
more exists to-day than it has done at any time since the 
old bonds of Colonial dependence were abandoned, and 
nothing put in their place. But it is equally true, that 
a great, and latterly a rapid, expansion of political con- 
ceptions, both in the Mother Country and in the Colonies, 
has made the gradual establishment of a new and better 
Imperial constitution possible. Without such a growth of 
ideas it would have been unprofitable even to discuss it. 

To that growth of ideas I am encouraged to think that 
some at least of the addresses contained in this book have 
in a certain measure contributed. It is in the hope that they 
may continue to do so that I venture to republish them. 
Their utility may not be altogether lessened by the fact 
that they contain no deliberate or formal propaganda, and 
that they bear so unmistakably the stamp of their time, 
a time of transition, of preparation, of groping towards a 
still but dimly visible end. They may not even be useless 
as bearing witness, conscious or unconscious, to that 
malignant influence of party warfare upon the treatment 
of Imperial questions, about which I have said so much. 
A considerable number of the later speeches, though not 
all of them, were delivered from party platforms, and 
are no doubt of the same type as a good many others 
delivered under similar conditions, which my friend the 
editor, in order as far as possible to avoid repetition, has 
wisely omitted. They ought not to be, in respect of sin- 
cerity, unfavourable specimens of party oratory, for in 
making them I had certain advantages which party speakers 
do not often enjoy. Always avowedly a free-lance, and 
unhampered by the obhgation to adhere strictly to the 
hnes of any ' authorised programme,' I could afford to 
devote myself to those subjects on which I really felt 
strongly. And, as it happened, there was, and is, so much 
in the pohcy of the present holders of power, with which I 
heartily disagree, that I never had to strain my conscience 
to find material for criticism. Yet, for all that, I feel now, 
as I read over these speeches, that the admixture of party 



XXX THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

polemics — ^not unfair, as party polemics go, or of a very 
virulent type — ^nevertheless detracts from my advocacy of 
the causes which I always had most at heart. The truth 
is, as it seems to me, that there is no object of supreme 
national importance at the present time, which can be at- 
tained by the method of party conflict. Imperial Union 
certainly cannot be, but no more can a sound system of 
National Defence, or the solution of the Irish Problem, 
or the repair of the mutilated constitution of the United 
Kingdom. The greatest political disaster of recent times 
was the break-down of the Conference of 1910. And if 
this is the case in the purely political field, it is surely no 
less true of the economic and social problems, of which all 
thoughtful men recognise the urgency. In none of these 
directions is there much to hope from the competition of 
rival bands of politicians in devising superficially attractive 
panaceas. 

This may be an entirely mistaken view, but it is one 
which has grown upon me in the course of a well-meant 
effort not to appear too singular, but to work for the causes, 
which I believe in, without departing altogether from the 
conventional lines of party controversy. It is not pleasant 
to have, after aU, to confess oneself an eccentric, still less 
to run the risk of being derided as a ' superior person.' 
So far from being justly regarded in that light, I am very 
conscious of my inferiority — certainly in effectiveness — ^to 
the ardent and whole-hearted party man. But then his 
chief strength lies in his conviction that the victory of his 
party means the salvation of the State. If all the objects 
one most cares about are hopeless unless they become 
national, if they seem utterly unattainable by the means 
of a mere party victory, it is difficult to throw oneself into 
the party fight with the necessary enthusiasm. Of course 
there is always the danger that, if you don't preach from 
a party platform, you won't get anybody to listen to 
you at aU. But one has to take some risks in this world. 
And on the whole I am inchned to think that there is 
a sufficiently widespread and increasing weariness of the 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

partisan treatment of every great national question to give 
the exponents of a different method a chance. The 
attempt to think out for himself, and to commend to 
others, a national policy as free as possible from party 
shibboleths, may disqualify a man as a candidate for office, 
and so deprive him of the most obvious opportunity of 
serving his country, but it need not exclude him from all 
influence in public life. Indeed I believe that the number 
of men profoundly interested in public affairs, and anxious 
to discharge their full duty as citizens, who are in revolt 
against the rigidity and insincerity of our present party 
system, is very considerable, and steadily increasing, and 
that they only need to stand together to make themselves 
felt. They may never attempt to form a new party of 
their own, indeed it is not a new party that is wanted. It 
is the encouragement of national as opposed to party spirit. 
What they could do with a little organisation would be 
to play the umpire between parties, and to make the 
unscrupulous pursuit of mere party advantage an unpro- 
fitable game. Nothing would be more calculated to impose 
moderation on the warring factions in bidding against one 
another for popular support than the existence of a power- 
ful body of opinion — powerful enough to turn many votes — 
which was certain to be alienated by tactics that were too 
unblushingly partisan. The growing influence of such a 
Jury might lead to the gradual removal first of one great 
national interest, and then of another, from the arena of 
party conflict, until what was left to fight over on the old 
lines would be only questions of no deep and permanent 
importance. What has actually happened with regard to 
the conduct of Foreign Policy in the last ten years is of 
hopeful augury. But there is room for much further pro- 
gress in the same direction. 

And if ever there was a question, which called aloud for 
consideration in none but a national spirit, it is the Imperial 
question. Indeed Imperialism, properly conceived, is just 
such a draught of oxygen as is needed to revitalise the 
used-up atmosphere of British politics. We are here in 



xxxii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

the presence of an influence which cannot but deeply affect 
the whole future of mankind. It is true that, owing per- 
haps to some of the associations of the word ' Imperial,' 
no great movement of the human spirit has ever been more 
completely misunderstood. But the misconception of it is 
being gradually overcome. ImperiaHsm as a political 
doctrine has often been represented as something tawdry 
and superficial. In reality it has all the depth and com- 
prehensiveness of a rehgious faith. Its significance is moral 
even more than material. It is a mistake to think of it as 
principally concerned with extension of territory, with 
' painting the map red.' There is quite enough painted 
red already. It is not a question of a couple of hundred 
thousand square miles more or less. It is a question of 
preserving the unity of a great race, of enabhng it, by 
maintaining that unity, to develop freely on its own lines, 
and to continue to fulfil its distinctive mission in the 
world. As it happens, that race — owing to causes which 
are plain on the face of history and which need not 
be recited here — is scattered over a large extent of the 
earth's surface. But this is accidental, not essential. 
Room for expansion is indeed essential, but there might be 
room for immense expansion within a smaller but more 
compact territory. It is true that this wide dispersion of 
the British race has certain great advantages — it has given 
us a unique range of experience, and the control of an 
unrivalled wealth and variety of material resources. But 
this dispersion is at the same time a source of weakness, 
and a source of danger, for it is owing to it, and to it 
almost alone, that the problem of maintaining political 
imity is so difficult. Indeed it is only ' the shrinkage of 
the world,' due to the triumphs of mechanical science, which 
has rendered the solution of that problem possible at 
all. But now that a solution is possible, the failure to 
find it would be incredible folly, and a huge disaster. That 
communities of the same origin, the same language, the 
same political and social structure, the same type of civilisa- 
tion, with all that they have to cherish, to develop, and to 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

defend in common, should fail to stand together, and should, 
owing to that failure, run the risk of falling severally under 
alien domination, would be as unnatural as suicide. 

And hke suicide, it would mean dereHction of duty. For 
the British race has become responsible for the peace and 
order and the just and humane government of three or four 
hundred millions of people, who, differing as widely as 
possible from one another in other respects, are aU alike in 
this, that, from whatever causes, they do not possess the gift 
of maintaining peace and order for themselves. Without 
our control their political condition would be one of chaos, 
as it was for centuries before that control was established. 
The Pax Britannica is essential to the maintenance of 
civilised conditions of existence among one-fifth of the 
human race. 

But this unique position, which is of inestimable value 
not only to the world but to ourselves, less perhaps for the 
material benefits which it brings us, than for its effect upon 
the national character — for it has helped to develop some 
of the best and most distinctive qualities of the race — is a 
position not easy to maintain. Interest and honour alike 
impel us to maintain it, but the strain is great. Our share 
of ' the white man's burden ' is an exceptional share. No 
doubt it is good for us to bear it, if we can. And we can 
bear it, but — in the long run — only if we bring to the task 
the undivided strength of the British race throughout the 
world, with aU its immense possibilities of growth. Sooner 
or later the burden must become too heavy for the unaided 
strength of that portion of the race which, at any given 
time, dwells in the United Kingdom. 

For the future growth of that portion is sternly restricted 
by physical conditions, and it has parted, and must continue 
to part, with much of its best blood and sinew to build up 
other lands. The population of these islands cannot greatly 
increase in numbers without declining in quahty, and the 
quahty of a large proportion of it — more of that directly — 
is already far below the standard which we ought to main- 
tain. A better distribution of the people between town 



xxxiv THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

and country, and greater attention to physical training, 
would aUow of the healthy development of our present 
numbers, perhaps of shghtly larger numbers. But, with 
even the best of management, there is not much more 
elbow-room. Yet artificial restrictions on increase are 
undesirable. They are the beginning of decay. Moreover 
there is not the slightest reason in our case to limit increase 
— provided the stock be sound — as long as there are vast 
undeveloped areas under our own flag simply clamouring 
for more and ever more inhabitants. We can and we ought 
to supply that need, and as a matter of fact there is a 
constant outflow of many of the most vigorous and enter- 
prising of our people to these new Britains beyond the 
seas. This stream of emigration is not an evil in itself. 
It is a good thing in itself. It would only become an evil 
if this precious human material, together with aU that has 
gone before to the same regions, were to be lost to us and 
to the Empire. To prevent such a calamity, to keep the 
scattered communities of British stock, while severally 
independent within their own confines, one body-politic 
among the sovereign nations of the world, maintaining 
their common history and traditions, and continuing to 
discharge their common duty to humanity — that is the 
noble, the difficult, but by no means impossible task 
which Imperialism seeks to achieve. 

It may be said that in any case the self-governing 
Dominions can give no help to the Mother Country in the 
defence or the development of her vast Asian and Central 
African possessions. But that is a very short-sighted view. 
Directly, indeed, the Dominions may contribute little to-day 
to the maintenance of the Dependent Empire, nor would it 
be reasonable, in the present stage of their development, to 
expect that they should. But indirectly they already 
contribute to it — and are zealous to do so in an increasing 
degree — ^by strengthening the Mother Country herself, and 
by helping her to uphold that maritime power which is 
the chief bulwark of the whole Imperial fabric. And then 
we are only at the beginning, in the very earliest stages, of 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

awakened interest, among the peoples of the Dominions, in 
the problems of the Empire as a whole. Hitherto they have 
been almost entirely absorbed, and very naturally, in their 
own local affairs. But that interest is bound to grow ; in- 
deed it is already growing very fast, as their relations with 
the outside world become more numerous and important. 
And with that larger outlook they are also beginning to 
take a pride in their membership of a world-wide Empire, 
while their increasing self-rehance and self-respect make 
them chafe at the idea of continuing to play a merely passive 
and subordinate role. This new leaven is bound to work 
great changes in their relations to the Mother Country and 
to one another, and to lead, if the Empire holds together, 
to their increased participation alike in its burdens and in 
its control. 

Throughout the foregoing statement I have emphasised 
the importance of the racial bond. From my point of view 
this is fundamental. It is the British race which built the 
Empire, and it is the undivided British race which can 
alone uphold it. Not that I underestimate the import- 
ance of community of material interests in binding the 
different parts of the Empire together. The following 
pages will show that I have emphasised it over and over 
again. But deeper, stronger, more primordial than these 
material ties is the bond of common blood, a common 
language, common history and traditions. But what 
do I mean by the British race ? I mean all the peoples 
of the United Kingdom and their descendants in other 
countries under the British flag. The expression may 
not be ethnologically accurate. The inhabitants of Eng- 
land, Scotland and Ireland are of various stocks, and in 
spite of constant intermixture, strongly -marked differences 
of type persist, even when they are not, as in the case 
of the Irish, emphasised and nourished by poHtical dissi- 
dence. And yet to speak of them collectively as the 
British race is not only convenient, but is in accordance with 
broad pohtical facts. Community of language and insti- 
tutions, and centuries of life together under one sovereignty, 



xxxvi THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

have not indeed obliterated differences, but have super- 
added bonds, which are more than artificial, which make 
them in the eyes of the world, if not always in their own, 
a single nation, and which it will be found impossible to 
destroy. And among the influences which have made and 
make for such national unity, the Empire itself holds 
a foremost place. It is their common work. The con- 
querors and rulers of the Dependent Empire, the settlers 
who have peopled the self-governing Dominions, have 
been drawn indifferently from every part of the United 
Kingdom. Face to face with alien peoples, or with the 
unpeopled wilderness, they have reahsed their essential 
unity. The jealousies, even the feuds, which divided 
them in the country of their origin, have fallen into the 
background. The common language and the common 
flag have prevailed. It is true that in aU the more popu- 
lous and more settled portions of the Dominions, where 
the struggle against hostile races or physical obstacles 
is over, the old distinctions are stiU to some extent main- 
tained and even cherished, but, with rare exceptions, 
they have now a purely social significance, and have lost 
aU traces of bitterness and enmity. In any serious emer- 
gency the men of the several British stocks stand firmly 
together. I can testify to this from my own experience. 
During the South African War, Nationahst members in the 
House of Commons may have cheered disasters to the 
British arms, and a few stray Irishmen from the Old Country 
may even have thrown in their lot with the Boers. But the 
South Africans of Irish descent were as keen supporters of the 
British cause as the mass of their Scotch or Enghsh fellow- 
citizens. Indeed, some of the most ardent of them all were 
the sons of men who had been malcontents, and even rebels, 
in the land of their origin. It is true that the Irish of the 
Dominions — excepting, of course, the Orangemen — ^remain, 
for the most part, ' Home Rulers.' But that does not in- 
volve, in the great majority of cases, any feehng of hostihty 
to the Empire. The contrast, in this respect, between them 
and the Irishmen who have passed under foreign flags — 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

the American Irish for instance — is marked, and is very 
significant. 

From the Imperial point of view it matters comparatively 
Httle, of which of the British stocks the population of the 
Dominions is composed, English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish, 
they tend, without losing their distinctive characteristics, 
to develop, in essentials, a common sentiment. The idea 
of keeping in effective touch with men of their own race in 
the Old Country, or in other lands under the British flag, 
and of presenting a united front to the world, appeals power- 
fully to them all. What does greatly matter, on the other 
hand, is the relative strength of all the British stocks col- 
lectively as compared with that of the people of other 
European races Hving side by side with them. It is true that 
in Canada the latter are almost equal in number to their 
feUow-citizens of British origin, while in South Africa they 
are more than equal, and that nevertheless Canada exhibits 
a strong and growing attachment to the Empire, while even 
in South Africa anything like active disaffection to it is 
dormant, if not dead. South Africa indeed presents to-day 
the surprising spectacle of a British Dominion in which a 
non-British race, quite recently at war with the British 
Empire, is, by virtue of its superior numbers, in exclusive 
possession of all political power, and there is yet no attempt 
to disturb the Imperial connection. The present dispute 
between two sections of the Boers is virtually a quarrel over 
the extent to which they should use their power, locally, for 
purely racial ends. Neither party aims, at any rate for the 
present, at detaching South Africa from the Empire. That 
such acquiescence should be possible, even for a time, affords, 
no doubt, striking evidence of the effect of free British 
institutions in allaying racial hostility as well as of the 
attractive force of the Empire. But, for all that, the 
position is far from being an ideal one. Souj^ Africa is, and 
wiU long remain, the weakest link in the Imperial chain, and 
she will be the last of the Dominions to enter an Imperial 
Union. I do not mean to say that, if the Mother Country 
and the other Dominions were to form such a Union, South 



xxxviii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

Africa might not be drawn into it. Indeed I believe she 
ultimately would be, for, given the preservation of local 
autonomy — which is a sine qua non of Union in all the 
Dominions — even the Dutch would not be insensible to the 
material and other advantages of a world-wide citizenship. 
But in the present conflict of centripetal with centrifugal 
forces South Africa must be reckoned among the latter. And 
she must be so reckoned, precisely because the British element 
in her population is comparatively so weak, and because 
we have thrown away the opportunity of strengthening it. 
In saying this, do not let me be thought to advocate the 
' anghcisation ' of the non-British races of the Empire, or to 
wish to force them into a British mould. Imperialism is 
something wider than ' Anglo-Saxondom ' or even than 
' Pan-Britannicism.' The power of incorporating aUen races, 
without trying to disintegrate them, or to rob them of their 
individuality, is characteristic of the British Imperial system. 
It is not by what it takes away, but by what it gives, not 
by depriving them of their own character, language, and 
traditions, but by ensuring them the retention of all these, 
and at the same time opening new vistas of culture and ad- 
vancement, that it seeks to win them to itself. The French 
Canadian need not cease to be a French Canadian, but he 
may be a British soldier or administrator aU the same, and 
he will have absolutely the same scope and opportunities as 
his competitors of British blood. And the whole Empire is 
equally open to the enterprise and ambition of the Dutch 
South African. This principle of boundless tolerance has, 
like everything human, ' the defects of its quahties.' It 
may become a source of weakness by being carried too far. 
And it has been carried too far, in my opinion, not when 
we have granted the freest permissive use of their own 
languages to the incorporated races, but when we have 
allowed any of those languages to be put on a footing of 
absolute equality with Enghsh in official use, and its teach- 
ing and employment to be made compulsory, where there 
were no reasons of necessity or convenience to justify 
such a course. But whatever the shortcomings of the 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

system, its merits far outweigh them. This broad in- 
clusiveness is one of the great secrets of the success of 
British rule. It is part of our moral capital as a nation, 
and gives us a title higher than mere force to the position 
which we occupy in the world. 

But the great point is, that this temper is distinc- 
tively British. It is peculiar to the British Empire among 
Empires, and to the British nation as an Empire-buUding 
race. Whether this is due to some original quality in the 
race itself — to its own composite character — or merely to the 
teachings of experience, I need not here attempt to deter- 
mine. I am not concerned with the causes of the fact, but 
with the fact itself and its consequences. It is not thus 
that Prussia has dealt with her Polish subjects, or Russia 
with the Poles and Finns. It was not thus that the early 
Dutch settlers in South Africa treated the Huguenots who 
took refuge among them. They stamped out the language 
and nationahty of these f eUow-Protestants and forced them 
aU into their own mould. No doubt we could not, if we 
would, deal with the Dutch in Hke fashion. But it is equally 
true that we would not if we could. We have never at- 
tempted it. Respect for their language and individuality, 
equality of citizenship between the white races, have been 
our principles from the first. Not only has this attitude 
become, in South Africa as elsewhere, a fundamental tenet 
of British Imperialism, but it is rooted in the character of 
the British race. And if it is true, as it certainly is, that 
the spirit of liberality and tolerance, of respect not only for 
personal freedom but for racial individuality, is essential to 
the preservation of the Empire, it is equally true that that 
spirit finds its firmest supporters in the British element 
of the population. When the British flag was hauled down 
in the Transvaal in 1881, the principle of equal citizenship 
disappeared with it, and the spirit of uni-racial dominance 
and exclusiveness took its place. Fair play between the 
two white races was much more strenuously upheld by the 
government of Sir Starr Jameson than it has been by the 
governments which have succeeded it, even by that of a 



xl THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

man who is personally so broad-minded as General Botha. 
It is not only because of their naturally keener attachment 
to the British flag, but because of their greater congenital 
sympathy with the vital Imperial principles of even-handed 
justice and ample tolerance, that a preponderance of people 
of British stock is so greatly to be desired in all the self- 
governing Dominions. 

To direct a steady outflow of men of British stock to the 
younger countries of the Empire must thus be a constant 
object of Imperial policy. But the serious pursuit of that 
object leads us very far. It is not merely a question of 
better control, of more careful arrangements for emigration. 
Of greater importance stiU is the quahty of the emigrants. 
And that depends upon the character of the nation from 
which they are drawn. Thus the consistent ImperiaUst is 
inevitably led to concern himself with those influences 
which affect the condition of the mass of our people here 
at home. He cannot help being a zealot for social im- 
provement. But he will have a touchstone of his own, by 
which to discriminate between the numerous and competing 
schemes for promoting it, of which our restless age is so 
prolific. He will be incUned to judge them by their pro- 
bable effect upon our national strength and Imperial position. 
But is there, after all, any better or more trustworthy cri- 
terion ? Judged by that test, there are no doubt many 
popular nostrums which would not pass muster. But 
there is no vital movement, making for the greater essential 
soundness, physical and moral, of the mass of the people, 
which is not embraced by the ideal of national and Imperial 
greatness, rationally conceived. 

I might defend this proposition by many illustrations, but 
I fear to weary the reader, who has had the patience to 
foUow me thus far. And I never set out with the ambitious 
desire to write a sociological treatise, but am simply trying to 
explain a particular point of view. I will therefore confine 
myself to one or two instances to make my meaning clear. 

Among the social movements of our time, which bear the 
stamp of wholesomeness, a high place must certainly be 
assigned to the effort to restore the lost balance between 



INTRODUCTION xli 

town and country, so that rural occupations and interests, 
and the rural spirit, may once more count for something in 
our national hfe. It is true that within the narrow confines 
of these islands the balance can never be entirely restored, 
though it may be in the Empire as a whole. But even in 
these islands something substantial can stUl be done. This 
movement, in order to succeed, must have an economic 
basis, such as a reasonable measure of Protection would no 
doubt afford. But Protection being, at any rate for the 
present, out of the question, it may nevertheless find such 
a basis in improved methods of cultivation, and in better 
business management on the part of agriculturists, as the 
experience of some foreign countries, notably Denmark, and 
the success of Plunkett and his school in Ireland have clearly 
proved. But whUe the movement must have an economic 
basis, its purpose and effect are more than economic. They 
are social and ethical. To increase the number of people 
living on the land and by the land, and to give to that in- 
creased number a healthier, brighter, and more interesting 
life, and a greater influence upon the character of the whole 
nation, which needs this steadying counterweight to the 
more restless and excitable spirit of the towns — that is the 
real gist of the rural movement. And its bearing on Im- 
perial development is clear. Countrymen are the best 
settlers. They have formed the core of the Army and Navy 
as well as of the administrative services of the Empire. 
The tenacity and stubborn endurance which carried Great 
Britain through the severest trials of the past, and made 
amends for many blunders, belong to a time when the 
country element was still predominant. No over-urbanised 
people would have lasted out the struggle with PhUip, or the 
struggle with Napoleon. Causes which, like the cause of 
ImperiaHsm, have a far outlook, and require of their 
votaries a firm grasp of fundamental principle and long 
persistence, would be the greatest gainers, if the temper of 
the countryside became once more a strong ingredient in 
the character of the nation. 

But no doubt, whatever may be the success of the rural 
movement, the great majority of the people of these islands, 



xlii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

and especially of Great Britain, will continue to be urban, 
and engaged in commercial and industrial pursuits. And thus 
the sympathy of those, who keep ever before their eyes the 
ideal of a vigorous national life, must needs be enlisted on 
the side of every honest effort to counteract the evil effects 
of aggregation in large cities upon the stamina and morale 
of the population. But they will only be able to feel real 
enthusiasm for remedies which are, in the best sense of the 
word, radical — which strike at the root of the evil, and do 
not merely seek to mitigate its consequences. 

Among remedies of this character the long and honour- 
able chapter of our industrial legislation — from the first 
Factory Act to the Trade Boards Act of 1909 — deserves a 
foremost place. This great body of law,^ stUl constantly 
growing, has done much to check physical deterioration, and 
has set an example which is being eagerly followed by the 
most progressive foreign nations. And there are two more 
recent movements prompted by the same spirit, which, if 
they strike root, will do much for the health and character 
of the people, namely the creation of Garden Cities and the 
organisation of the Boy Scouts. The latter indeed is pecu- 
liarly happy in its inspiration because it begins at the right 
end. It is in youth and adolescence that the greatest 
mischief is done, and such mischief is irreparable. 

Indeed, if there is one thing more needful than another, 
it is a bold and comprehensive treatment of the training of 
youth. How sorely we stUl lack a large conception of what 
is required to build up a sturdy and self-reliant, not to say 
an Imperial race ! Millions are indeed spent on education, 
and educational ideals are improving. But we remain far 
too timid in providing aU that is necessary to make our 
system successful, and in carrying the work, which has 
been begun at such great cost, to its logical conclusion. And 
thus much of that immense expenditure is wasted. It is 
waste to provide elaborate instruction for children who have 
not the strength to assimilate it, whether their inability 
be due to underfeeding or to other physical defects, equally 
the result of neglect. In compelling every child to come 
to school, the State undertook, and rightly undertook, a 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

great responsibility. That responsibility is not discharged 
by the provision of a certain amount of more or less suitable 
instruction. Care for the health and physical develop- 
ment of the child, as perfect as money and science can make 
it, is equally imperative, if that instruction is not to be 
largely thrown away. And there is waste again, and fear- 
ful waste, in letting the education of boys and girls stop 
dead short, just when it is beginning to be formative, and 
allowing them to drift away, at much too early an age, into 
money-makiijg employments, which have often no future, 
and to unlearn, before they are grown up, whatever know- 
ledge and disciphne they had begun to acquire. The time 
will surely come when this vast output of haK-trained young 
people, with no definite skill in anything, will be recognised 
as a huge social and economic blunder, and when the State 
will keep a hold upon the lad until he is fit to earn, not a 
precarious pittance, but a decent and continuous livelihood 
as a craftsman, and upon the girl, until she is capable of 
discharging the duties of a wife and mother. That, no 
doubt, is a reform of so fundamental a character, and in- 
volving changes of such magnitude in our social and in- 
dustrial system, that it will take time to accomphsh. But 
if it was once recognised as the goal of national education, 
the difficulties could be got over one by one. It is in- 
definiteness of aim which is at the root of our troubles. At 
present it is reaUy very difficult to say what we are driving 
at with all this immense expenditure of money and energy, 
or why, having gone as far as we do go, we suddenly stop. 
Up to a point everything is carefully regulated, then, at the 
most critical moment, aU the rest is left to chance. Our 
object evidently cannot be the making of children into men 
and women fit to make their way in the world. And yet 
is it possible to conceive of education as anything less ? 

It may be said that to complete the training of the youth 
of the nation would be far too costly. But the answer is 
twofold. In the first place, we should thus get far better 
value for the immense expenditure to which we are already 
committed ; and in the next place, whatever the cost, it 
would be trifling compared to the burden which we now 



xliv THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

carry in the shape of a great multitude of people, living 
perpetually in destitution or on the verge of it. It is true 
that there will always be some destitution, because there 
will always be a certain number of people who are hopelessly 
vicious or incompetent. But these causes do not account 
for a tithe of the men and women who at present can 
hardly keep body and soul together. They are not vicious 
or incapable of doing useful work. They are just unskilled. 
They have never been taught any definite trade, or given 
sufficient general training to pick one up for themselves, and 
they have, as a rule, begun to do inferior and unimprov- 
ing work too early. The existence of so vast a body of 
people in this condition is a disgrace to a country with such 
great resources and opportunities as our own. And there 
is no necessity for it in the nature of things. The evil can 
be remedied, but it can only be remedied in one way, and 
that is by the better training of the young, by not turning 
them loose upon the world before they are fit for anything 
in particular. No system which man can devise — ^not Social- 
ism or Collectivism, or any other — can permanently ensure 
a decent Hving wage to people who are not economically 
worth it. But there is no good reason why people of low 
economic value should be so numerous. There is plenty of 
work to be done in the world which can support in comfort 
the men who are capable of doing it — enough even in this 
crowded country, certainly more than enough in the out- 
side Empire. It is the capacity that is lacking, not the 
opportunities. 

The idea that the State should extend its care for the 
young beyond the age of childhood must not be confounded 
with a demand for the general extension of the school age. 
A perfectly organised system of National Education would 
no doubt involve a great increase in the number of Con- 
tinuation Schools, and much more complete arrangements 
for Technical Instruction. But education is not confined 
to schools, and there are many trades which can only be 
learned properly if the learners begin young. What 
public poHcy demands is not so much that young people 
should be kept at school, as that they should not be engaged 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

in work which is not, in the broad sense of the word, edu- 
cational, which is not fitting them for better work when 
they are grown up. And there is one other principle equally 
fundamental, namely that their work should not be of such 
a nature as to stunt their growth, and that they should 
have time and opportunity for physical development. 
The continuous physical training of the youth of the nation 
tiU they reach the age of maturity may be thought a counsel 
of perfection. But so was general elementary education 
fifty years ago. Fifty years hence the former may seem 
no less a matter of course than the latter seems to-day. 
Why should not every locaHty have its Boys' Brigade, 
and aU lads between fourteen and eighteen be required to 
join it ? Exercise and discipline at that age are no less 
important, perhaps even more important, than they are in 
childhood. But if these blessings are to become general, 
the pioneer work of voluntary agencies will, as in the case 
of elementary education, have to be co-ordinated and 
supplemented by public action. 

It is possible that we may be led to this conclusion by 
another road. There is a great and growing anxiety among 
thoughtful men of all classes and parties about our national 
security, and it no longer seems as improbable as it once did 
that, in view of the enormous growth of the Armies and 
Navies of other Powers, we may be driven to adopt some 
form of universal military training in our own country. 
I have said so much on this subject in several of the addresses 
contained in this book that I will not discuss the general 
question here. My own conviction has been and is, that 
while the United Kingdom does not need an Army of the 
same size or character as those of the great Continental 
nations, it does need such an increase of its military strength 
as our present system can never give us. That necessary 
increase of strength can, I believe, only be obtained by 
calling on the whole able-bodied youth of the nation to 
undergo, on the threshold of manhood, a period of regular 
military training. But in order that that period of training 
may be effective, and yet not excessively long, the young 
men who enter upon it should be physically fit, and men- 



xlvi THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

tally alert, and accustomed to discipline. But these are just 
the qualities which we must desire them to have in any 
case, and which anything like a perfect system of National 
Education would aim at giving them. Thus the exigencies 
of National Defence may lead us to a readier acceptance of 
the ideals of educational and social reformers. This is 
one more illustration of the close connection which reaUy 
exists between two objects, which are frequently repre- 
sented as alien and even antagonistic to one another — I 
mean National Strength and Social Progress. Interest in 
the latter is not confined to men whose sympathies are 
cosmopohtan rather than patriotic. On the contrary, 
there is no stronger stimulus to exertion for the removal of 
the social evils, which sap the vitality of a people and dig 
deep trenches of cleavage between classes, than genuine 
pride of country. To those, in whom that sentiment is 
reaUy powerful, the existence of slums, of sweating, of 
health-destroying industries, and of all other conditions 
which lead to the degradation of great numbers of their 
fellow-countrymen, must appear an intolerable desecration 
of aU that they hold most dear. 

I have travelled a long way in following the idea of 
Imperialism into some of its less obvious consequences, and 
have been led to touch, however fugitively, on many sub- 
jects which seem at first sight to have Httle relation to it. 
And this may be thought to be inconsistent with what I said 
at the outset about the necessity of discrimination, of keeping 
foreign and Imperial relations separate from subjects of a 
different character, with which they are now so constantly 
mixed up. But there is no real inconsistency between the 
two points of view. The field of public action, in that vast 
conglomerate of different communities which constitute 
the British Empire, is enormously wide. It can only be 
covered by a complete network of graduated authorities — 
municipal, provincial, national, and Imperial — to all of 
which, within their several spheres, it is desirable to leave 
the maximum of independence and free initiative. It is 
a complex problem to adjust their relations to one another 
and to keep each of them confined to its legitimate work. 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

But while delimitation of functions is necessary, there is 
no reason why it should militate against unity of spirit and 
of aim. On the contrary, every form of pubhc activity is 
Hkely to be benefited, and every worker to gain a new 
inspiration from reahsing the bearing of his individual 
efforts upon the welfare of the Empire as a whole. Defini- 
tion of spheres as between one public authority and another, 
division of labour between public men — these are salutary, 
and indeed essential. But all this necessary division and 
specialisation — and it ris constantly on the increase — must 
not make us forget that the body of any state, like the 
human body, is indivisible, however we may distinguish its 
different members and their several functions for purposes 
of study or of treatment. There is a constant interaction 
between the several parts. And then again the individual 
citizen remains the same human being, to however many 
different poHtical organisms — borough, county, province, 
country, or what not — he may belong. It is reasonable 
to expect that he should be animated by some unity of 
purpose in all his several capacities. He may be well 
advised to confine his main activity to a single sphere, and 
even to a single subject. But it is neither possible nor de- 
sirable that his interests and his sympathies should be equally 
restricted. He will inevitably, if he has any care for public 
affairs at all, be drawn into many controversies, and forced 
to make up his mind on many questions, outside the subject 
which is specially his own. And that, if he wishes to be 
true to himself, is not always an easy matter. No doubt 
there are many people, not lacking in vigour or pubHc spirit, 
who do not experience this difficulty. They seem capable 
of keeping their opinions in water-tight compartments, and 
of holding strong views on a number of more or less related 
questions, without attempting to harmonise them. They 
throw themselves now into one movement which appeals 
to them, and now into another, yet never stop to inquire 
whether their various activities are converging to any 
common goal. But there are others, and I confess to being 
one of the number, to whom such a position would be one 
of intolerable mental discomfort. Especially in a time 



xlviii THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE 

like the present, a time of ferment, of deep social unrest, of 
innumerable and competing agitations for radical changes 
in our pohtical system, they feel an imperative need of some 
clue through the maze, some guiding principle, which may 
save them from straying into blind alleys and frittering 
away energy upon a number of superficial ' reforms,' and 
which may help them to concentrate upon a few great and 
simple objects of pubHc endeavour. And if, as is likely, 
they fail to find such a principle in the programme of any 
pohtical party, they have to try and evolve it for them- 
selves. It is in some such effort as this that I myself have 
been led to find a resting-place in the doctrine of Imperial- 
ism, which I have tried here very briefly, and no doubt very 
inadequately, to set forth. To what extent my conclusions 
may be of help to other people, it is impossible for me to 
know. Different men are animated by different ideals. 
All that can be expected of any of us is to remain true to his 
own. And for my own part I can imagine no higher ideal 
which can animate the citizens of my country at the present 
time than that of a great and continuous national life, 
shared by us with our kinsmen, who have buUt up new 
communities in distant parts of the earth, enabhng them 
and us together to uphold our traditional principles of 
freedom, order and justice, and to discharge with ever- 
increasing efficiency our duty as guardians of the more 
backward races who have come under our sway. That 
ideal seems to me to embrace all the worthiest aims, whether 
of narrower or wider scope, which British statesmanship 
can pursue, and to give to all, who are engaged in any 
branch of pubHc hfe, a central meeting-ground and a 
common inspiration. 

MILNER. 

March 1913. 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



LONDON.— March 29, 1897 

[The following speech was delivered in London before Lord — then Sir 
Alfred — ^MUner's departure for Cape Town, to take up the post of Governor 
of the Cape, and High Commissioner for South Africa. His appoint- 
ment, little more than a year after the Jameson Raid, at a time when the 
affairs of South Africa were attracting much attention and causing no 
little anxiety, had excited an exceptional amount of public interest. The 
dinner at which this speech was made was given to him as a ' send 
off,' and was attended by a great number of the leading men of both 
pohtical parties, including Mr. Goschen, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. John 
Morley, as well as by many distinguished representatives of the Civil 
Service, the Universities, and the professional and hterary world. Lord 
Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt, though unable to be present, both 
wrote very strongly-worded letters of sympathy. Mr. Asquith, then in 
Opposition, but an old college friend of Lord Milner's, was in the chair, 
and proposed the health of the guest of the evening in a very felicitous 
speech, in which eloquent eulogy was relieved by some good-tempered 
badinage, and which was admirably suited for an occasion, when people 
of the most opposite opinions were uniting in an expression of personal 
sympathy, confidence, and good-will, towards a public servant going to 
what everybody realised to be an important and difficult post.] 

The admirable and artistic manner in which the toast of my 
health has been proposed by Mr. Asquith renders it more 
than ever difficult for me to make adequate acknowledg- 
ment. I remember, Mr. Asquith, that an old friend of yours 
and mine, one whose memory I beheve is held in reverence 
by many of those present here this evening — I mean Pro- 
fessor Jowett — once remarked in his terse way, ' Modesty 
is only a virtue in a young man.' I believe in my case it 
is a fear lest modesty might survive into advanced age, 

A 



2 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 29, 

which has led my friends to do what they could to render 
such a calamity impossible. But fortunately for myself, 
there is one subject on which even my greatest eulogists 
have made express reservations. I have read a great many 
astonishing things about myself lately, but I have not 
read anywhere that I was a good speaker, and, therefore, 
whatever may be the difficulties of the future, I have no 
embarrassing reputation to live up to to-night. And that, 
if I may say so, is fortunate, because the feelings which 
are excited in me by this gathering, though they are very 
strong, are also very simple, and can best be expressed in 
simple language. I suppose no man going to a difficult 
post in his country's service has ever had a send-off for 
which he has had more cause to be grateful or more cause 
to be proud. But I am not so fooHsh as to suppose that 
the significance of this gathering is entirely personal. I 
am glad to feel that there is a personal element in it. With 
my old friend of college days in the chair, and a whole 
posse of his and my contemporaries in all parts of the room, 
with my kind friend Mr. Goschen so near me (to whom, 
as Mr. Asquith has truly said, I owe my introduction to 
the public service), and with so many others present who 
have given me unmistakable proofs of affection and good- 
will, I cannot but feel that a kindly interest in myself per- 
sonally has had a great deal to say in bringing you all 
together. But if I am not mistaken there is another influ- 
ence which has also had much to do with it, and that is the 
desire, the generous desire, to give every possible support 
and encouragement to the man, whoever he may be, who is 
called upon to do what in him lies to maintain the honour 
and the influence of Great Britain in a country in which 
Enghshmen are so much interested as they are at present 
in South Africa. I can assure you that no greater encourage- 
ment could have been given to a man in my position 
than that which you have given me to-night. When I 
think of this assembly, representing as it does both political 
parties, containing men of the highest public eminence on 
both sides in politics, then I feel that, however humble 



1897] LONDON 3 

may be the view I take of myself, at any rate my credentials 
are extraordinary. And, not so much on my own account as 
on account of the great public interests which are involved, 
I am sincerely grateful for that fact. 

I hope, however, that on this occasion I may be 
excused from any reference to the future. Whatever 
may be the qualities required of the Queen's representa- 
tive in South Africa — and I have seen a very formidable 
list of them — there are two at least which I believe every 
one will regard to be essential — I mean tact and judgment. 
I should conclusively prove my complete lack of those 
qualities, if on this occasion I were to express any half- 
formed and ill-considered opinions on matters of the 
greatest importance. But, perhaps, if it does not appear 
too egotistical, you will allow me to make a personal pro- 
fession of faith, which in a friendly gathering of this character 
may not be out of place. A great number of people have 
said to me within the last few weeks something of this kind : 
' We do not know whether we ought to congratulate you ; 
you are going to face a very ugly business,' or words to 
that effect. Well, to all these cheering remarks I should 
like to make one answer : ' Do not congratulate me, cer- 
tainly. Let congratulations wait, even if they have to 
wait for ever, until I have done something to deserve them. 
But still less condole with me : for no man is to be pitied, 
whatever happens, who in the best years of his life is not 
only permitted, but is actually called upon to engage in 
work into which he can throw himself with his whole heart 
and with a single mind.' A public servant must go where 
he is wanted. He is singularly fortunate if he is wanted 
for that kind of business to which he is most willing that 
all his energies should be devoted. That is my case to-day. 
One class of public questions interests one man, and another 
class another. I do not attempt to estimate their relative 
importance. All I know is, that for myself personally, no 
questions have ever had at all the same attraction as those 
relating to the position of this country in the outside world, 
and especially to the future of Greater Britain. May I be 



4 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 29, 

permitted on this occasion, Mr. Asquith, to recall another 
evening spent by us at the Oxford Union, more than twenty- 
years ago. It is no inappropriate reminiscence in a company 
like this, which includes no fewer than eleven ex-presidents 
of the Union, and, if I may be allowed to add myself, a 
round dozen. On that occasion you, as now, were in the 
chair, and the subject of debate was the possibility of 
strengthening the ties which unite this country to her great 
Colonies, and them to one another. The subject excited 
less interest than most of the subjects which we debated in 
those days ; far less, I am glad to think, than it would 
excite at the present moment. But there were some half- 
dozen of us who hammered away — I dare say we bored our 
audience — at these ideas : that the growth of the Colonies 
into self-governing communities was no reason why they 
should drop away from the Mother Country or from one 
another ; that the complete political separation of the two 
greatest sections of the English-speaking race was a dire 
disaster, not only in the manner in which it came about, 
but for coming about at all ; that there was no political 
object comparable in importance with that of preventing 
a repetition of such a disaster, the severance of another 
link in the great Imperial chain. The greatest local inde- 
pendence, we then argued, was not incompatible with closer 
and more effective union for common purposes. I am in- 
terested to remember that our leader on that occasion, and 
the man who made by far the most powerful and effective 
speech on our side, was not an Englishman at aU, but a 
Canadian — a member, that is to say, of a community which 
has solved the problem of uniting, on the basis of absolutely 
equal citizenship, men of different races and languages, 
who have remained bound by ever-strengthening ties of 
loyalty and affection to the Mother Country. WeU, my 
lords and gentlemen, the opinions which I then feebly 
attempted to support have only grown stronger in me with 
the lapse of years. I admit that on some public questions 
my views may have been faint and indistinct, that, as 
IVIr. Asquith has suggested, I may have been a wobbler. I 



1897] LONDON 5 

have a fatal habit of seeing that there is a great deal to be 
said on both sides of a case. I admit that there are some 
subjects of political controversy upon which I have not 
been able to form an opinion at all. In that Greek state 
in which, if I remember rightly, a man was bound to take 
one side or the other upon pain of death, I should have 
had my head cut off before I was twenty-five, and should 
have died a martyr to my principles. But there is one 
question upon which I have never been able to see the other 
side, and that is precisely this question of Imperial unity. 
My mind is not so constructed that I am capable of under- 
standing the arguments of those who question its desir- 
ability or its possibility. I admit that the sentiment, the 
desire, to strengthen the ties which unite the different 
portions of the Empire, though rapidly growing, may not 
yet be so powerful or so universal as to make any great 
forward step possible in our time. What we can do, and 
what we ought to do, is to maintain religiously the ties 
which exist, to seize every opportunity which naturally 
offers itself of developing new ones, to spare no effort to 
remove misunderstanding and mistrust, where they have un- 
fortunately arisen, and to trust to time and the absolute 
reasonableness of our ideal, to bring about its ultimate 
complete triumph. Such, at least, is my personal convic- 
tion. And this being so, I feel that it is a great privilege 
to be allowed to fill any position in the character of what I 
may be, perhaps, allowed to call a civilian soldier of the 
Empire. To succeed in it, to render any substantial service 
to any part of our world-wide State, would be all that in 
my most audacious dreams I have ever ventured to aspire 
to. But in a cause in which one absolutely believes, even 
failure — ^for the cause itself is not going to fail — even per- 
sonal failure would be preferable to an easy life of comfort- 
able prosperity in any other sphere. I will only say, in 
conclusion, that I feel that no words of mine can possibly 
convey an adequate sense of my gratitude for the magni- 
ficent welcome, the magnificent farewell, which you have 
given me to-night. My special thanks are due to my old 



6 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 3, 

friends, Mr. Brodrick/ Mr. Curzon,^ and Mr. Gell, who, 
though all of them very busy men, have devoted so much 
time to the laborious and not altogether grateful task of 
organising this meeting, and to you, Mr. Asquith, for the 
kindly manner in which you have presided over it. My 
thanks are also due to all who have done me the honour to 
come here to-night. I am sure I shall be forgiven, if for 
this and many other kindnesses I am unable to express my 
thanks to each of them individually. To-night will always 
be most memorable in my life — perhaps the most memor- 
able occasion which I have yet experienced. I can only 
express the fervent hope that I may be able to do some- 
thing to justify your confidence, as I certainly can never 
be unmindful of your kindness and good-will. 

GRAAPF REINET.— March 3, 1898 

[This speech, which at the time when it was made caused a considerable 
stir in South Africa, was the first speech of anything like a controversial 
character deUvered by Sir A. Milner in that country. When he first 
arrived at Cape Town in the spring of 1897 there was great political 
tension. The differences between Great Britain and the Transvaal had 
reached an acute phase, and there was a very bitter feeling between the 
Dutch and the British in Cape Colony. But the impartial and concilia- 
tory attitude of the new Governor, who visited the most distant parts of 
the colony and made friends with all sections of the people, while decUning 
to be drawn into pohtical controversy, gradually led to a subsidence of 
racial and party polemics, and the latter months of 1897 were a period 
of comparative tranquillity. 

In the beginning of 1898, however, the pohtical horizon again became 
clouded. The Government of the Transvaal persisted in its old illiberal 
pohcy towards the Uitlanders, and the agitation among the latter once 
more gathered force. In the Cape Colony a general election was impend- 
ing, and the party fight was being conducted largely on racial hnes, and 
with much more reference to the situation in the Transvaal than to any 
local issues. It was under these circumstances that Sir A. Milner uttered 
this, his first warning, to the Bond party in the Cape Colony, not to allow 
their racial sympathy with the Boers of the Transvaal to carry them to the 
length of actively supporting the reactionary pohcy of Kruger, and thwart- 
ing the efforts of the British Government to obtain, by peaceful means, 

^ Now Viscount Midleton. * Now Earl Curzon. 



1898] GRAAFF REINET 7 

these reforms in the Government of the Transvaal which everybody, 
including the Colonial Dutch themselves, knew to be urgent.] 

I SHOULD have been glad to avoid any reference to political 
questions to-night, but I have been put into a position in 
which it is impossible for me entirely to ignore them. I 
cannot, without discourtesy, disregard altogether the terms 
of the address which was presented to me to-day by the 
local members of the Afrikander Bond. That address pro- 
tested in somewhat vehement terms against the charges of 
disloyalty, which it alleged had been directed against the 
Bond, and it suggested that I should take steps to clear 
the character of that organisation. Really, gentlemen, I 
think the request a little unreasonable. We are just enter- 
ing upon a season of electioneering. If, in addition to 
discharging my ordinary business (which pretty well fiUs 
up my day), I had to correct all the unfair and exaggerated 
statements which at election times are made by every party 
against every other party, I should not only have to work 
all day, but to sit up aU night. I really think I am much 
better in bed, for remember that if I once begin to take up 
this agreeable occupation of putting everybody right, I 
shall not only have to clear the Afrikander Bond of charges 
of disloyalty, but I shall also have to clear other people of 
the charge which I have often heard, and which is at least 
equally unreasonable, of wishing to oppress the Dutch 
subjects of Her Majesty in this colony. As a matter of 
fact, there is no party and no person who has any such 
desire. No, gentlemen, it is perfectly evident to me that 
it is the Governor's duty to keep as clear as he can of all 
this partisan mud-throwing, and not to give it additional 
importance by dwelling upon it. Let him rather use what- 
ever influence he may happen to possess to promote harmony, 
mutual respect, and the co-operation of all parties for those 
objects of general utility which are so numerous and so 
urgent. Let him attempt to direct men's thoughts and 
attention to their great interests in the development of 
the country, for which almost everything still remains to 
be done, and in the intellectual and moral elevation of its 



8 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 3, 

various races — ^not only of the two great white races, but 
also of the coloured races — for which there is certainly 
still much to be done. 

Of course I am glad to be assured that any section of Her 
Majesty's subjects are loyal, but I should be much more 
glad to be allowed to take that for granted. Why should I 
not ? What reason could there be for disloyalty ? You 
have thriven wonderfully well under Her Majesty's rule. 
This country, despite its great extent and its fine climate, 
has some tremendous natural disadvantages to contend 
against ; and yet, let any one compare its position to-day 
with what it was at the commencement of Her Majesty's 
reign, or even thirty years ago. The progress in material 
wealth is enormous, and the prospects of future progress 
are greater still. And you have other blessings which by 
no means always accompany material wealth. You live 
under an absolutely free system of government, protecting 
the rights, and encouraging the spirit of independence, of 
every citizen. You have courts of law, manned by men of 
the highest ability and integrity, and secure in the discharge 
of their high functions from all danger of external inter- 
ference. You have, at least as regards the white races, 
perfect equality of citizenship. And these things have not 
been won from a reluctant sovereign. They have been 
freely and gladly bestowed upon you, because freedom and 
self-government, justice and equahty are the first prin- 
ciples of British policy. And they are secured to you by 
the strength of the power that gave them, whose navy 
protects your shores from attack, without your being asked 
to contribute one poimd to that protection, unless you 
yourselves desire it. Well, gentlemen, of course you are 
loyal. It would be monstrous if you were not. 

And now if I have one wish, it is that I may never again 
have to deal at any length with this topic. But in order 
that I may put it aside with a good conscience, I wish, 
having been more or less compelled to deal with it to-night, 
to do so honestly, and not to shut my eyes to unpleasant 
facts. The great bulk of the population of this colony, 



1898] GRAAFF REINET 9 

Dutch as well as English, are, I firmly believe, thoroughly 
loyal, in the sense that they know they live under a good 
Constitution and have no wish to change it, and that they 
regard with feelings of reverence and pride the august lady 
at the head of it. If we had only domestic questions to 
consider, if political controversy were confined in this 
colony to the internal affairs of the country, there would 
no doubt be a great deal of hard language used by conflict- 
ing parties, and very likely, among the usual amenities of 
party warfare, somebody would caU somebody else dis- 
loyal. But the thing would be so absurd, so obviously 
absurd, that nobody would take it seriously, and the charge 
would be forgotten almost as soon as uttered. What gives 
the sting to the charge of disloyalty in this case, what 
makes it stick, and what makes people wince under it, is 
the fact that the pohtical controversies of this coimtry at 
present unfortunately turn largely upon another question — 
I mean the relations of Her Majesty's Government to the 
South African Republic — and that, whenever there is any 
prospect of a difference between these two parties, a number 
of people in the colony at once vehemently, and without 
even the semblance of impartiality, espouse the side of the 
Republic. Personally, I do not think that they are dis- 
loyal. I am familiar at home with the figure of the politician 
— often the best of men, though singularly injudicious — 
who, whenever any dispute arises with another country, 
starts with the assumption that his own country must be 
in the wrong. He is not disloyal, but really he cannot be 
very much surprised if he appears to be so to those of his 
fellow-citizens whose inclination is to start with the exactly 
opposite assumption. And so, in this case, I do not take 
it that people are necessarily disloyal, because they carry 
their sympathy with the Government of the Transvaal 
(for, seeing the close tie of relationship that unites a great 
portion of the population here with the dominant race in 
that country, such sympathy is perfectly natural), to a 
point which gives some ground for the accusation, that 
they seem to care much more for the independence of the 



10 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 3, 

Transvaal than they do for the honour and the interests 
of the country to which they themselves belong. 

For my own part, I believe the whole object of those 
people in espousing the cause of the Transvaal is to prevent 
an open rupture between that country and the British 
Government. They loathe, very naturally and rightly, 
the idea of war, and they think that, if they can only 
impress upon the British Government that, in case of war 
with the Transvaal, it would have a great number of its 
own subjects at least in sympathy against it, that is the 
best way to prevent such a calamity. But herein they 
are totally wrong. For this policy of theirs rests on the 
assumption that Great Britain has some occult design on 
the independence of the Transvaal — an independence which 
she herself has given ; and that she is seeking causes of 
quarrel, in order to take this independence away. But 
that assumption is the exact opposite of the truth. So 
far from seeking causes of quarrel, the constant desire of 
the British Government is to avoid causes of quarrel, and 
not to take up lightly the complaints (and they are numerous) 
which reach it from British subjects within the Transvaal ; 
for the very reason that it wishes to avoid even the sem- 
blance of interference in the internal affairs of that country, 
while, as regards external affairs, it insists only on that 
minimum of control which it has always distinctly reserved, 
and has reserved, I may add, solely in the interests of the 
future tranquillity of South Africa. That is Great Britain's 
moderate attitude, and she cannot be frightened out of it. 
It is not any aggressiveness on the part of Her Majesty's 
Government which now keeps up the spirit of unrest in 
South Africa. Not at all. It is the unprogressiveness, I 
wiU not say retrogressiveness, of the Government of the 
Transvaal, and its deep suspicion of the intentions of Great 
Britain, which causes it to devote its whole attention to 
imaginary external dangers, when every impartial observer 
can see perfectly well that the real dangers which threaten 
it are internal. 

Now I wish to be perfectly fair. Therefore let me say 



1898] GRAAFF REINET 11 

that this suspicion, though absolutely groundless, is not, 
after all that has happened, altogether unnatural. I ac- 
cept the situation that at the present moment any advice 
that I could tender, or that any of your British feUow- 
citizens could tender, to the Government of the Transvaal, 
though it might be the best advice in the world, would be 
instantly rejected, because it was British. But the same 
does not apply to the Dutch citizens of this colony, and 
especially to those who have gone so far in the expression 
of their sympathy for the Transvaal, as to expose them- 
selves to these charges of disloyalty to their own flag. 
Their good-will at least cannot be suspected across the 
border, and if all they desire — and I believe it is what they 
desire — is to preserve the South African Republic, and to 
promote good relations between it and the British Colonies 
and Government, then let them use aU their influence, 
which is bound to be great, not in encouraging the Govern- 
ment of the Transvaal in obstinate resistance to all reform, 
but in inducing it gradually to assimilate its institutions, 
and what is even more important than institutions, the 
temper and spirit of its administration, to those of the free 
communities of South Africa, such as this colony or the 
Orange Free State. That is the direction in which a 
peaceful way out of these inveterate troubles, which have 
now plagued this country for more than thirty years, is 
to be found. 

I am afraid that I have spoken to-night at inordinate 
length. It is not often that I make a speech of any dura- 
tion. But I have laid down for myself two rules about 
such unfortunate differences as may and do arise between 
parties in this colony. One is, not to mention them at all 
if I can help it — to keep my eyes continually fixed upon the 
great common interests which unite men of different races, 
rather than upon the differences which divide them. My 
other rule is that, when I am forced to speak on these sub- 
jects, I shall do so frankly and without reserve. I am not 
sure if that is the way to win immediate popularity, although 
I seem to be getting on fairly well to-night. But, what- 



12 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 24, 

ever may be the personal consequences, I feel sure that 
this course is the best way to clear the air, to remove in- 
veterate misunderstandings, and to promote in the long 
run those objects which all good men and loyal citizens 
have at heart. 



CAPE TOWN.— June 24, 1899 

[In the interval between the Graaf Reinet speech and the present one, 
the political situation in South Africa had become more acute than ever. 
The quarrel between the Uitlander population and the Transvaal Govern- 
ment had developed to a point at which twenty thousand of the former peti- 
tioned Great Britain as the suzerain Power for assistance in obtaining the 
redress of their grievances. In the British Colonies the population of 
British race sympathised intensely with the Uitlanders, while the Dutch 
ranged themselves increasingly on the side of the Transvaal Government. 
A conference between President Kjuger and Sir A. Milner, at which the 
latter urged strongly the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders, was held at 
the end of May 1899 in Bloemfontein, and ended in failure. On Sir A. 
Milner's return to Cape Town, a powerful deputation of the Colonial 
British waited upon him to express approval of Ms poUcy, and urge the 
necessity of the Imperial Government continuing to support the claims of 
the Uitlanders. This speech was delivered in reply to their address.] 

Mr. Ebden and Gentlemen, — I need hardly say that I am 
deeply grateful for your expression of sympathy and support. 
It is rather difificult to choose words in which to reply to it. 
At a time of anxiety like the present, one is anxious to 
avoid any word which could possibly do harm. At the 
same time, a few words may do good if they tend to clear 
the issue. As you are all aware, the recent Conference led 
to no result. It led to no result because the whole dis- 
cussion turned on the question of the franchise, and on that 
no agreement was possible. It may be asked. Why was so 
much weight attached to this one question ? Well, I fuUy 
admit the franchise is only a means to an end, and the end 
is to obtain fair play for the Uitlander population in the 
South African Republic. That is the main concern which 
Her Majesty's Government has in view — ^the protection of 
the Uitlander population, containing as it does so large a 



1899] CAPE TOWN 13 

proportion of British subjects. My view was, and is, that 
the best way to help these people, best for them, best for 
the Republic, and best for the good relations between the 
Republic and Her Majesty's Government, is to put them in 
a position to help themselves. 

It may be that I conceded too much, it may be that I 
went too far in giving other questions the go-by for the 
moment, and directing all my efforts to secure for the 
Uitlanders a position within the State. But my view was 
this : it was a unique opportunity. To have pressed for 
the redress of Uitlander grievances one by one, to say 
nothing of other subjects of difference, would have been to 
engage in an irritating controversy, and to spoil the chance 
of an amicable compromise on broad lines going to the root 
of the differences. That controversy, which I was so 
anxious to avoid, may have to come yet, but my object at 
the Conference was to avert it. It seemed best to strike 
straight at the root of the evil by giving the people, whose 
interests Her Majesty's Government is bound to defend, 
such a share of political power as would enable them gradu- 
ally to redress their grievances themselves, and to strengthen, 
not to weaken, the country of their adoption in the process. 
But just because I was relying on a single remedy, it was 
absolutely essential that that remedy should be a radical 
one. 

It was useless, indeed worse than useless, and would 
only have led to worse trouble later on, to have accepted a 
scheme so framed, I do not say so designed, as not to 
bring people in, but to keep them out — a scheme hedged in 
with restrictions of the most elaborate kind, and hampered 
with a condition which I knew that numbers of people 
would never accept, and which one could not reasonably 
urge them to accept.^ If this Reform Bill was not going to 

^ I.e. the abandonment, by a man desiring to naturalise, of his old citizen- 
ship for seven or seven and a half years, before getting full rights under 
his new citizenship. Because of this principle, ' the majority ' — says Sir 
E. T. Cook, Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War — 'would not 
naturalise, while even if they got naturalised, no considerable pro- 
portion of old residents would obtain the vote in less than five years.' 
Further, ' the measure of redistribution was very small. A large majority 



14 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 24, 

bring a considerable number of Uitlanders into the State, 
if the enormous majority, including aU the leaders, were 
still to remain outside, how was it possible to feel any con- 
fidence in such a solution, or accept it as a comprehensive 
settlement ? 

As against this, it is urged that my simpler plan would 
have deluged the State with new citizens. I am convinced 
that this is not so. Having regard to the obligations of 
burghership, and to other reasons which will, in any case, 
deter many Uitlanders from applying for it, and to the 
conditions as to length of residence and proper qualifica- 
tion which I was quite prepared to make, I feel sure that 
the number of new citizens would not have been anything 
like so great as was supposed. And however numerous 
they might have been, the old citizens would have con- 
trolled for a long time the bulk of the constituencies. They, 
too, are increasing rapidly in number, and long before they 
could have been outnumbered, if they ever were out- 
numbered, the process of fusion would have begun to set 
in. Moreover, it is not as if the Uitlanders were all of one 
kind or one mind. They are of various nationalities, and 
represent different interests and opinions. The President 
told me (he was very strong indeed on the point) that he 
had a petition from Uitlanders, in favour of the Govern- 
ment, signed by an even greater number of people than 
signed the petition to Her Majesty. Well, then, what was 
there to fear ? Half the new-comers, on his own showing, 
would have been on his side, and many, I am sure, who are 
now opposed to him — opposed, as you may say, to the 
State because they are excluded from it — would be loyal 
citizens the moment they were in the State. 

No doubt it is a difficult business to get different races to 

of the inhabitants contributing nearly the whole revenue would be 
represented by five members (or seven ultimately) out of thirty-one. 
Lastly, even if a considerable number of Uitlanders accepted the condi- 
tions of naturalisation, they would find themselves hindered by a long 
series of barbed- wire impediments.' 'These conditions,' in the words of 
Mr. Robson, K.C., M.P. — now Lord Robson — ■' were of such a character as 
to make the period of qualification utterly unimportant. It might as 
well be seventy years as seven. ... A grotesque and palpable sham.' 



i8g9] CAPE TOWN 15 

pull together inside one body-politic. That is the problem 
over all South Africa. But it is solved in other parts of 
South Africa, more or less. It would be solved altogether 
and for ever, if the principle of equality could be estab- 
lished all round. It is the one state, where inequality is 
the rule, which keeps the rest in a fever. And that is 
bound to be universally recognised in time. Meanwhile, 
for the moment, the attempt to get things put on their true 
basis has not succeeded, and we have to face the resulting 
situation. Some remedy has still to be found to remove, 
at least in some measure, the grievances of the Uitlanders, 
and to aUay their discontent. 

I am absolutely convinced that those grievances, though 
sometimes stated in exaggerated language, are very real. 
It has over and over again been my duty to call attention 
to the fact. And there is another aspect of the case which 
has been forced upon me as High Commissioner, having 
to bear in mind the interests of South Africa as a whole. 
Is it consistent with the position of Great Britain in regard 
to this country — nay, is it consistent with the dignity of 
the white race — that a large, wealthy, industrious, and 
intelligent community of white men should continue in 
that state of subjection, which is the lot of the immigrant 
white population of the Transvaal ? That is a position 
which we have, by some means or other, however gradual, 
however pacific, to get them out of. 

I see it is suggested in some quarters that the pohcy of 
Her Majesty's Government is one of aggression. I know 
better than any man that their policy, so far from being 
one of aggression, has been one of singular patience, and 
such, I doubt not, it will continue. But it cannot relapse 
into indifference. Can any one desire that it should ? It 
would be disastrous that the present period of stress and 
strain should not result in some settlement to prevent the 
recurrence of similar crises in the future. Of that I am 
stiU hopeful. It may be that the Government of the South 
African Republic will yet adopt a measure of reform more 
liberal than that proposed at Bloemfontein. If not, there 



16 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [apr. 12, 

may be other means of achieving a desired result. In any 
case it is a source of strength to those who are fighting the 
battle of reform, and will, I believe, contribute more than 
anything else to a peaceful victory, to feel that they have, 
as they never had before, the unanimous sympathy of the 
British people throughout the world. 



CAPE TOWN.— Apeil 12, 1900 

[In the interval between the preceding speech and this one, war had 
broken out, the British Colonies had been invaded, and, encouraged by 
the initial successes of the Boers, ten thousand British colonists of Dutch 
extraction had gone into rebeUion and joined the enemy. Then, follow- 
ing the arrival of Lord Roberts in South Africa, the tide of war turned ; 
Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved, and at the time when this speech 
was delivered, Lord Roberts had captured Bloemfontein, the capital of 
the Orange Free State, and was preparing to march on Pretoria. The 
issue of the war was no longer doubtfid, but great anxiety existed among 
the British colonists lest the Boer RepubUcs should be allowed to con- 
tinue to exist. A deputation of leading Nonconformists in Cape Colony 
waited upon Sir A. Milner to urge the necessity of annexing the Republics 
and bringing the whole of South Africa directly under the British flag.] 

I THANK you for coming here to-day to present me with 
this address. Emanating as it does from a body of men 
so representative, whose deliberate opinion on a question 
of the highest public importance is entitled to so much 
weight, I cannot but feel that it is an event of unusual 
importance. You represent, I think, all the great Non- 
conformist religious bodies of this town and neighbour- 
hood. Your attitude is typical of the unequalled unanimity 
and strength of conviction which exists among the Non- 
conformists of South Africa, with regard to the great 
struggle at present convulsing this country. The men whom 
I see here to-day, and their fellow ministers throughout 
South Africa, are not in the habit of obtruding their opinions 
on political questions. It is a unique crisis which has 
brought them into the arena, and the exceptional character 
of their intervention lends additional weight to the 
temperate, but strong and clear, statement of their posi- 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 17 

tion which has just been placed before me. As regards 
myself personally, I cannot but feel it is a great source of 
strength at a trying time, to be assured of the confidence 
and approval of the men I see before me, and of all whom 
they represent. 

You refer to my having to encounter misrepresentation 
and antagonism. I do not wish to make too much of 
that. I have no doubt been exposed to much criticism 
and some abuse. There has, I sometimes think, been an 
exceptional display of mendacity at my expense. But 
this is the fate of every public man who is forced by circum- 
stances into a somewhat prominent position in a great 
crisis. And, after aU, praise and blame have a wonderful 
way of balancing each other if you only give them time. 
I remember that, when I left England for South Africa 
three years ago, it was amidst a chorus of eulogy so exces- 
sive that it made me feel thoroughly uncomfortable. To 
protest would have been useless — it would only have 
looked Uke affectation. So I just placed the surplus praise 
to my credit, so to speak, as something to live on in the 
days — ^which I surely knew must come sooner or later if 
I did my duty — ^when I should meet with undeserved 
censure. And certainly I have had to draw on that account 
rather heavily during the last nine months. But there is 
still a balance on the right side which, thanks to you and 
others, is now once more increasing. So I cannot pose as 
a martyr, and what is more important, I cannot complain 
of any want of support. No man placed as I have been 
in a position of singular embarrassment, exposed to bitter 
attacks to which he could not reply, and unable to explain 
his conduct even to his friends, has ever had more com- 
pensation to be thankful for than I have had in the constant, 
devoted, forbearing support and confidence of all those 
South Africans, whether in this colony, in Natal, or in the 
republics, whose sympathy is with the British Empire. 

In the concluding paragraph of your address you refer, 
in weighty and carefully considered terms, to the condi- 
tions which you deem necessary for the future peace and 

B 



18 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [apr. 12, 

prosperity of South Africa, and for the ultimate harmony 
and fusion of its white races. I can only say that I entirely 
agree with the views expressed in that paragraph. The 
longer the struggle lasts, the greater the sacrij&ces which 
it involves, the stronger must surely be the determination 
of all of us to achieve a settlement which will render the 
repetition of this terrible scourge impossible. * Never 
again ' must be the motto of all thinking, of all humane 
men. It is for that reason, not from any lust of conquest, 
not from any desire to trample on a gallant, if misguided, 
enemy, that we desire that the settlement shall be no 
patchwork and no compromise, that it shall leave no room 
for misunderstanding, no opportunity for intrigue, for the 
revival of impossible ambitions, or the accumulation of 
enormous armaments. President Kruger has said that he 
wants no more Conventions, and I entirely agree with 
him. A compromise of that sort is unfair to everybody. 
If there is one thing of which, after recent experiences, I 
am absolutely convinced, it is that the vital interests of 
all those who have to live in South Africa, of our present 
enemies as much as of those who are on our side, demand 
that there should not be two dissimilar and antagonistic 
poKtical systems in that which Nature and History have 
irrevocably decided must be one country. To agree to a 
compromise which would leave any ambiguity on that 
point, would not be magnanimity. It would be weakness, 
ingratitude, and cruelty, ingratitude to the heroic dead, 
and cruelty to the unborn generations. 

But when I say that, do not think that I wish to join in 
the outcry, at present so prevalent, against the fine old 
virtue of magnanimity. I believe in it as much as ever I 
did, and there is plenty of room for it in South Africa 
to-day. We can show it by frank recognition of what is 
great and admirable in the character of our enemies, by 
not maligning them as a body, because of the sins of some, 
perhaps even of many individuals. We can show it by 
not crowing excessively over our victories, and by not 
thinking evil of every one who for one reason or another 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 19 

is unable to join in our legitimate rejoicings. We can 
show it by striving to take care that our treatment of 
those who have been guilty of rebellion, while characterised 
by a just severity towards the really guilty parties, shall 
be devoid of any spirit of vindictiveness, or of race pre- 
judice. We can show it above all, when this dire struggle 
is over, by proving by our acts that they libelled us who 
said that we fought for gold or any material advantage, 
and that the rights and privileges, which we have resolutely 
claimed for ourselves, we are prepared freely to extend to 
others, even to those who have fought against us, when- 
ever they are willing loyally to accept them. 



CAPE TOWN.— April 20, 1900 

[From a speech in reply to an address from ' The Gtiild of Loyal Women ' 
of Cape Colony. The situation at the time when these words were spoken 
was practically the same as that described on page 16.] 

What I specially welcome about the statement of prin- 
ciples contained in your address is its wide outlook, its 
appreciation of what is meant by citizenship of the British 
Empire. That is what we all need so greatly, not only in 
Cape Colony, or in the Colonies generally, but quite as 
much in Great Britain itself, the wider patriotism. Do 
not think it is inconsistent with local patriotism. Quite 
the reverse. The latest political red herring is an attempt 
to confuse the minds of men about the real issue at the 
bottom of the present struggle — ^which is simply whether 
this country shall be inside or outside the British Empire 
— ^by representing it as a struggle between patriotic South 
Africans and men whose interests and sympathies lie out- 
side this country. In future, we are told, we are only to 
have two parties here — South Africans and Uitlanders. 
But the difficulty of this ingenious idea is that it takes 
two to make a fight. Before you can get two bodies of 
men to engage in combat they must both exist, and, as it 
happens, there is no such thing in existence, either here or 



20 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 22, 

in Great Britain, as an Uitlander party, if that means a 
party which wishes to see South Africa governed in any 
other interest than its own. I am, I beUeve, supposed to 
be a typical Imperiahst. Speaking as an Imperialist, I 
can only say that it is not only consistent with my political 
creed, but it is an essential part of it, that South Africa 
should be governed in the interest and by the agency of 
the people whose lives are bound up in her, who feel for 
her, and who work for her, as their home. 

But the spirit of local patriotism, which I, for one, desire 
to see strengthened, not weakened, is liable to two aberra- 
tions. It is a mistake to think that such patriotism can 
only be found, or only exist in full measure, in born South 
Africans. Nothing can be more unwise in a young country 
than to make distinctions between those who are born in 
it and those who have come from outside, provided they 
are equally attached to it, equally prepared to serve it as 
their home. And it is even a greater and more fatal 
mistake to regard devotion to South Africa as inconsistent 
with, much more as antagonistic to, devotion to the British 
Empire. If there is one thing of which I am absolutely 
convinced, it is that the highest interests of South Africa 
herself make for her inclusion in that great association of 
free and self-governing communities, known as the British 
Empire, the existence of which, as a unit of invincible 
power, is essential to the maintenance of the political ideals 
which these communities have in common, and which 
mean so much for the whole future of humanity. 



CAPE TOWN.— May 22, 1900 

[From a speech replying to an address presented by the Salt River Work- 
men. The date of this speech, of which only the following passage is pre- 
served, is a little later than that of the two preceding ones. In the interval 
the tide of war had been moving steadily in favour of the British. It was 
obvious that the Boer forces had been broken up, and no one as yet sus- 
pected that two years of guerilla warfare were still to be gone through 
before the resistance of their scattered bands could be finally overcome. 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 21 

Sir A. Milner, who from the time of the Bloemfontein Conference onwards 
had been violently attacked by the Afrikander Bond party in Cape Colony, 
and by the pro-Boers at home, now became the object of many demon- 
strations of sympathy and support, accompanied by exhortations to 
persist in his policy, from the British and Dutch loyaUsts. One of these 
was a deputation from the workmen at the Salt River Railway Works, 
the largest body of organised artisans in the colony, who, like the industrial 
population generally, were mostly British by race and very British in 
sympathy. On the day when this deputation waited on the Governor, it 
was widely rumoured and generally believed that Mafeking had been 
relieved, though authentic news of its rehef had not been received. Sir 
A. Milner about this time was as much concerned to restrain the exulta- 
tion and excessive optimism of his supporters as he had been a few months 
earher to keep up their drooping spirits.] 

Btjt I think there is another feeUng besides admiration 
for heroism which we have towards the defenders of 
Mafeking. We admire heroism I hope, even in those of 
our enemies who have displayed it, and there are many 
of them. Do not let us forget when we condemn, as we 
rightly condemn, acts of treachery and barbarity, which 
have undoubtedly been committed, that these have been 
on the whole exceptional, and that the conduct of the 
enemy, in the main, has been that of brave men, fighting, 
indeed, in my opinion, for a very bad cause, but for a 
cause which many of them believed to be a right one ; 
and that they therefore are entitled to respect, I am not 
sure if this is altogether a popular sentiment just now, 
but it is a right one. But I say there is another feeling 
besides admiration, which we must have towards the 
defenders of Mafeking, I mean gratitude for their enormous 
services, not only to this colony but to the Empire. These 
services can never be forgotten. I believe as firmly as 
any one that they are all right at Mafeking, but whatever 
happens there, its defenders have rendered services for 
which you and I have got to be grateful to our last day. 
I notice in your address and in the speeches delivered 
that you refer to the future before this country when the 
war is over. I do not anticipate a time of great prosperity 
coming with all that rapidity which some people seem to 



22 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 28. 

anticipate, but I do know this, that, sooner or later, a time 
of great prosperity is undoubtedly assured to South Africa, 
and is so assured in consequence of the war and of the 
manner in which the war has resulted. When I say that, 
I am thinking not only of the future that lies before this 
country in the way of material development, but of the 
enormously improved social and political conditions under 
which that development will now proceed. I am not 
thinking only what a wonderful country, one of the most 
wonderful in the world, South Africa is going to be for 
skilled workmen, whether they be skilled in manufactures 
or in the practice of agriculture. I am thinking of the 
fact, that in future they are going to flourish in this 
country and develop as freemen, that education is going to 
make a great start, and that the development before us, 
far from being confined to material conditions, is going 
to be intellectual and moral also. However we may deplore 
the war, its result will be to remove an enormous incubus 
which rested upon the moral no less than the material 
progress of this great country. And if this be so, what do 
we not owe to the men who kept that Boer army hammer- 
ing away at Maf eking for months, while we down here 
were practically undefended, who gave the reinforcements 
from home time to come, and who even at the last moment 
held a large force of the enemy idle and useless for the 
general purposes of the campaign, in its vain attempt to 
overcome their invincible resistance and endurance ? We 
owe much to Mafeking. 



CAPE TOWN.— June 28, 1900 

Sale of Intoxicating Liquor to Natives 

[Among the deputations waiting on Sir A. Milner about this time — see 
note to previous speech — ^was one which came to urge the necessity of 
putting a stop to the sale of Hquor to natives in the territory of the Boer 
Republics. At the date of this deputation the Orange Free State had 
just been formally annexed to the British Empire, under the title of the 
' Orange River Colony,' but no similar step had as yet been taken with 



1900] CAPE TOWN 23 

regard to the Transvaal, which still remained ' The South African Republic' 
Sir A. MUner, as appears from the following speech, was not a httle 
embarrassed at this time, when the war was still in course, and the con- 
quest of the Boer states far from completed — as a matter of fact it took 
nearly another two years to complete — by the number of suggestions 
showered upon him with regard to the future administration of countries 
which were not yet in any sense under his jurisdiction. He had, how- 
ever, no doubt as to the policy of preventing the sale of hquor to natives, 
and at a subsequent stage, when he actually was Governor of the Transvaal, 
one of his first acts was to give effect by legislation to the promise with 
which this speech concludes.] 

I NEED hardly say that I shall have very great pleasure — 
in fact I shall regard it as a duty — ^to transmit this petition 
to the Secretary of State for submission to Her IMajesty, 
and I am sure that it will be considered at home with all 
that regard to which the labours and experience of those 
here present entitle it. I had some doubts, when first 
asked to receive this deputation, whether I ought to do 
so now, because I think all discussions as to the future 
legislation and administration, certainly of what is stiU 
the South African Republic, and to some extent even of 
the Orange River Colony, are a little premature. But I 
reflected that between the date of the presentation of a 
petition of this kind, and the moment when it has passed 
through all the necessary official channels and actually 
reaches the people whom it is intended to influence, a con- 
siderable time must elapse ; and, therefore, I thought it 
was perhaps only just to give you this amount of start in 
bringing your views before the Government and the people 
of England. I can help you to that extent, and perhaps 
having said so much, I ought to say no more, indeed any- 
thing more that I may say is a matter of self-indulgence, 
because really I have no locus standi in this case other than 
that of the transmitter of your message to those who have 
it in their power to decide on the question of policy. At 
this moment I do not know in the least what system of 
administration Her IMajesty's Government propose to intro- 
duce into the new territories, nor who the agents of that 
administration are likely to be. Therefore, in what I am 



24 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 28, 

going to say, I shall speak for once with a pleasing sense 
of comparative irresponsibility, and with the feeling that 
I am pledging nobody but myself. My words will have 
no more weight than those of any other person speaking 
with a certain amount of knowledge of the conditions of 
South Africa. 

Now, addressing you in that simple character, I can say 
that I absolutely and entirely agree with the views put 
before me. This is a subject on which I feel very strongly. 
I have always felt it a tremendous responsibility which 
the white races of South Africa took upon themselves, 
when they claimed to be masters and rulers of the black 
races. Of course they are so by virtue of their superior 
strength. But I suppose none of us as Christians would 
be content to feel that we governed merely by virtue of 
our superior strength, and that there was no moral justifi- 
cation for the rule which we exercised. You can only 
justify the rights that white men in this country claim 
over black by using those rights for the benefit of the 
subject race, and not merely for your own convenience. 
And there can be no doubt, in this case, which course is 
most in the interest of the subject race. I believe it is the 
universal experience of those who are best acquainted with 
the conditions of native life, that there is nothing in the 
world more important for the preservation and the eleva- 
tion of the native than to prevent him from coming into 
contact with intoxicating liquors, and if you cannot pre- 
vent that contact altogether, then to restrict it as much 
as possible. Now there are very many questions affect- 
ing the black races in South Africa which are extraordinarily 
difficult, because of the supposed conflict between the 
interest of the blacks and the interests of the whites ; but 
this seems to me to be a question in which there is no such 
conflict, for everything that the moralist and the philan- 
thropist and the Christian can urge in favour of prohibi- 
tion from his point of view, is enforced and supported by 
what the captain of industry and the economist has to say 
from his. I think there is really very seldom a conflict 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 25 

of interest between black and white, if questions are pro- 
perly understood, but at any rate there is no conflict in 
this instance. And therefore, unlike many problems which 
South African government presents, this question does not 
appear to me a difiicult one to decide, in principle. I 
think our duty with regard to it is particularly clear, and 
I think our duty is comparatively easy. 

So much for the question of principle. Looking at it 
as a matter of practice, we find that in the Orange River 
Colony there is a good law on this subject, well enforced ; 
and, speaking as a practical man, I cannot suppose that 
Her Majesty's Government, with so much that is rotten 
in the state of South Africa to claim their attention, will 
be anxious to disturb anything that has been found by 
experience to be sound. In the Transvaal the situation 
is different. I am not so well acquainted as I ought to 
be with the details of the legislation of the Transvaal on 
this subject, but I take it that the authorities who are 
most competent to speak with regard to it are pretty 
nearly unanimous that the law itself is a good law. But 
it is a matter of common knowledge that it has been very 
badly administered, and consequently the condition of 
intoxication which prevailed among the natives was one 
of the greatest scandals under the late Government. Well, 
gentlemen, we made a great row about it, I amongst others. 
I have spoken in dispatches — I do not know whether they 
have been published or not — over and over again very 
strongly about the gross scandal of the illicit liquor traffic in 
the Transvaal, and others have spoken in the same sense. Of 
course we were told that our criticisms were exaggerated ; 
of course we were told that it was one of the innumerable 
tricks of the capitalists and their tools — ^like myself — to 
throw discredit upon the RepubHcan Government, and 
get up a quarrel between it and the Government of Great 
Britain, and that we did not really care about the condi- 
tion of the natives. But I did and do care most intensely. 
There is no subject on which I have felt more strongly. 
There is nothing which has grieved me more than to know 



26 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 9, 

of the existence of that terrible demorahsation, and to feel 
that Her Majesty's Government, which, after all, never 
intended entirely to abandon the natives in any part of 
South Africa, was unable to do anything to check it. What 
I said on that subject I meant, and I mean it now, and 
nothing that my voice or influence can do shall be left 
undone, in order that that scandal may not continue under 
British rule. I believe every Englishman would be ashamed 
if it were to continue even for six months under the flag 
of Great Britain. 



CAPE TOWN.— November 9, 1900 

[Towards the close of 1900 the second phase of the struggle in South 
Africa, the guerUla war, had assumed formidable proportions. The pro- 
longation of resistance in the newly-annexed territories was accompanied by 
a recrudescence of sedition and agitation throughout Cape Colony. The first 
rebeUion in that colony, which followed the initial successes of the Boer 
armies, had promptly collapsed on the victorious advance of Lord Roberts. 
Martial law was withdrawn immediately on the surrender of the rebels, 
although at a later stage it was once more found necessary to have 
recourse to it, in a more stringent form and for a longer period. The 
leniency thus shown to the surrendered rebels, and the prompt return 
to ' constitutional ' government, encouraged the Bond party in the 
colony to fresh exhibitions of their sympathy with the enemy across the 
border. Violent attacks continued to be made in the Press and on 
the platform upon the conduct of the British troops, the pohcy of the 
British Government, and upon Sir A. Milner personally. This agitation 
culminated a few months later in the second rebeUion in Cape Colony, 
which greatly extended the area of guerilla warfare, and enhanced the 
difficulty of putting an end to it. That task had now fallen to Lord 
Kitchener, who, on Lord Roberts's return to England, had just assumed 
the chief command of the British forces in South Africa. 

The agitation of the Bond led to counter-manifestations on the part 
of those who sympathised with the British cause. 

The ' League of Loyal Women,' at a meeting of which Sir A. Milner made 
the following speech, was one of the most active organisations on the 
loyalist side.] 

It is nearly five months since my first and last appearance 
at a meeting of this Guild. I am glad to congratulate you 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 27 

on the immense progress which you have made in the 
interval. The manufacture of sedition in this colony goes 
on merrily as before. Powerful bellows are always being 
blown to fan the flame of race hatred, and to play upon 
the passionate prejudice against Great Britain which exists 
among a large section of the population, and which is the 
legacy of an unhappy past. That fire is destined to burn 
itself out, despite all the efforts of the bellows-blowers„ 
But in the meantime it is going to cause much havoc. It 
is your part to do what you can in the interval to quench 
the flames, and to circumscribe their ravages. I Imow it 
is no easy task. We must all feel a deep sympathy with 
the scattered loyalists in certain parts of this colony where 
they are a small minority, without whose efforts the voice 
of reason and of truth would never reach the ears of the 
majority of the people of those districts, knowing as they 
do only one language, and hearing only one side of the 
story. Such efforts often entail great hardships upon those 
who make them. In some cases their sufferings may only 
amount to social discomfort, but in others, I am sorry to 
say, they reach the pitch of serious persecution. It is 
difficult under such circumstances to hold the straight 
course and avoid opposite errors : on the one hand, never 
to compromise with the sedition-mongers — ^there has been 
too much toying with treason in the past ; on the other 
hand, never to lose patience with, never to cease making 
allowances for, those who are misled. The future of loyalty 
in this country is after aU mainly a question of education. 
You have got to teach, and no good teacher ever loses her 
temper. Let us leave the monopoly of hysterics to the 
other side. Hard words break no bones. If they did I 
should not have a whole bone left in my body, and yet, 
as you observe, mine are absolutely intact. No, let us 
leave hard words to others. It is for us, for you and for 
me who believe in the reason, who believe in the justice, 
who believe in the victory of the cause of Queen and Empire, 
to show the temperateness of strength, the temperateness 
of profound conviction, the spirit which should animate 



28 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. ii, 

all the men and women who mean to persevere to the end, 
in the struggle for an absolutely good cause. Only one 
word more and I have done. South Africa to-day is pass- 
ing through a crisis of extraordinary severity and of great 
duration. To the suffering of regular warfare has suc- 
ceeded an undisciplined, straggling, purposeless resistance, 
involving all, and more than all, the horrors of war without 
any of its dignity. It is difficult to appreciate the motives 
of the men who are urging their fellow-countrymen on to 
that hopeless struggle, kept up by deceit and leading to 
nothing but destruction. But I think it would be a mistake 
to take too despondent a view of this additional calamity. 
The forces of Her Majesty the Queen, which are engaged 
now in establishing order and laying the foundation of a 
stable peace in South Africa, are called upon to confront 
a totally new problem, and new methods have to be devised 
to deal with it. These methods are being devised and they 
will succeed. Let us frankly confess that we have all 
been too apt to think we were at the end of our troubles. 
But I see now some tendency to fall into the opposite error. 
Let us acknowledge that we are by no means out of the 
wood, but don't let us have the least doubt that the jungle 
is not impenetrable. And above all, the greater our 
troubles to-day, the stronger must be our conviction of 
the necessity of efforts like those on which you are engaged, 
efforts to prevent for ever a recurrence of these terrible 
events, by gradually converting the minds and hearts of 
our opponents from their present hopeless policy, which 
can lead to nothing but perpetual discord, to a frank 
acceptance of the position of citizens of the free-est Empire 
in the world, and to co-operation with us in building up 
a better South Africa. 



CAPE TOWN.— December 11, 1900 

[The following speech was deUvered at the height of the Bond agitation 
in Cape Colony, which preceded and led to the second rebellion. During 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 29 

the later months of 1900 guerilla warfare was going on in almost all parts 
of the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, but it had not as yet 
extended to the Cape Colony. The ground for that extension was, how- 
ever, being assiduously prepared by the vehement and inflammatory 
language of the leaders of the Bond, and especially by the Dutch clergy, 
who were unwearied in denouncing the conduct of the war on the British 
side, and in manifesting their sympathy with the enemy. The agitation 
culminated in the Annual Congress of the Bond, which was on this occa- 
sion held at Worcester in Cape Colony. The Resolutions of that Congress 
were subsequently presented to Sir A. Milner at Cape Town by a deputa- 
tion of leading Bondsmen, with the request that they should be trans- 
mitted to Her Majesty's Government. 

The Resolutions were as follows : — 

(1) 'We, men and women of South Africa assembled and represented 
here, having heard the report of the people's deputation to England, 
and having taken into earnest consideration the deplorable con- 
dition into which the peoples of South Africa have been plunged, 
and the grave dangers threatening our civihsation, record our 
solemn conviction that the highest interests of South Africa demand 
— (1) A termination of the war now raging, with its untold misery 
and horror, as well as the burning of houses, the devastation of the 
country, the extermination of a white nationahty, and the treat- 
ment to which women and children are subjected, which was 
bound to leave a lasting legacy of bitterness and hatred, while 
seriously endangering the future relationship between the forces 
of civilisation and barbarism in South Africa ; and (2) the reten- 
tion by the Republics of their mdependence, whereby alone the 
peace of South Africa can be maintained. 

(2) ' That this meeting desires a fuU recognition of the right of the 
people of this Colony to settle and manage its own affairs, and 
expresses its grave disapproval of the poHcy pursued and adopted 
in this matter by the Governor and High Commissioner, Sir Alfred 
Milner. 

(3) ' That this Congress solemnly pledges itself to labour in a 
constitutional way unceasingly for the attainment of the objects 
contained in the above resolutions, and resolves to send a deputa- 
tion to His Excellency Sir Alfred Milner to bring these resolutions 
officially to the notice of Her Majesty's Government.' 

After hearing the deputation, the High Commissioner replied] : — 

I ACCEDE to your request to bring these resolutions to the 
notice of Her Majesty's Government. I think it is doubtful 
whether I ought to do so, but in view of the prevaihng 



30 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. ii, 

bitterness and excitement it is better to err, if one must 
err, on the side of conciliation and forbearance. And, 
having regard especially to the fact that one of the resolu- 
tions is directed against myself, I wish to avoid any appear- 
ance of a desire to suppress its companions on account of 
it. But having gone thus far on the road of concession, I 
take the liberty, in no unfriendly and in no polemical 
spirit, of asking you quite frankly what good you think 
can be done by resolutions of this character ? I am not 
now referring to the resolution directed against myself. 
That is a matter of very minor importance. The pith of 
the whole business is in resolution number one, a resolution 
evidently framed with great care by the clever men who 
are engineering the present agitation in the colony. Now 
that resolution asks for two things — a termination of the war, 
and the restoration of the independence of the republics. 
In desiring the termination of the war we are all agreed, 
but nothing can be less conducive to the attainment of 
that end than to encourage, in those who are still carrying 
on a hopeless resistance, the idea that there is any, even 
the remotest chance, of the policy of annexation being 
reversed. I am not now speaking for myself. This is not 
a question for me. I am simply directing your attention 
to the repeatedly declared policy of Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment, a policy just endorsed by an enormous majority of the 
British nation,^ not only by the ordinary supporters of the 
Government, but by a great number of those ordinarily 
opposed to it. Moreover, that policy is approved by all 
the great self-governing colonies of the Empire, except 
this one, and in this one by something like half the white 
population, and practically the whole of the native. And 
this approving half of the white population, be it observed, 
embraces all those who, in the recent hour of danger, when 
this colony itself was invaded and partially annexed, 
fought and suffered for the cause of Queen and Empire. 
I ask you is it reasonable to suppose that Her Majesty's 
Government is going back upon a policy deliberately 

1 At the General Election of 1900. 



igoo] CAPE TOWN 31 

adopted, repeatedly declared, and having this overwhelm- 
ing weight of popular support throughout the whole Empire 
behind it ? And if it is not, I ask you further : What is 
more likely to lead to a termination of the war — a recog- 
nition of the irrevocable character of this policy, or the 
reiteration of menacing protests against it ? And there is 
another respect in which I fear this resolution is little calcu- 
lated to promote that speedy restoration of peace which 
we have all at heart. I refer to the tone of aggressive 
exaggeration which characterises its allusions to the conduct 
of the war. No doubt the resolution is mild compared 
with some of the speeches by which it was supported, 
just as those speeches themselves were mild compared with 
much which we are now too well accustomed to hear and 
to read in the way of misrepresentation and abuse of the 
British Government, British statesmen, British soldiers, the 
British people. But even the resolution, mild in comparison 
with such excesses, is greatly lacking in that sobriety and 
accuracy which is so necessary for us all to cultivate in 
these days of bitterly inflamed passions. It really is pre- 
posterous to talk, among other things, about ' the exter- 
mination of a white nationality,' or to give any sort of 
countenance to the now fully exploded calumny about the 
ill-treatment of women and children. The war, gentle- 
men, has its horrors — every war has. Those horrors 
increase as it becomes more irregular on the part of the 
enemy, thus necessitating severer measures on the part of 
the Imperial troops. But, having regard to the condi- 
tions, it is one of the most humane wars that has ever been 
waged in history. It has been humane, I contend, on 
both sides, which does not, of course, mean that on both 
there have not been isolated acts deserving of condemna- 
tion. Still the general direction, the general spirit on both 
sides, has been humane. But it is another question whether 
the war on the side of the enemy is any longer justifiable. 
It is certainly not morally justifiable to carry on a resist- 
ance involving the loss of many lives and the destruction 
of an immense quantity of property, when the object of 



32 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 7, 

that resistance can no longer, by any possibility, be attained. 
No doubt, great allowance must be made for most of the 
men still under arms, though it is difficult to defend the 
conduct of their leaders in deceiving them. The bulk of 
the men still in the field are buoyed up with false hopes — 
they are incessantly fed with lies, lies as to their own chance 
of success, and, still worse, as to the intentions of the British 
Government with regard to them should they surrender. 
And for that very reason it seems all the more regrettable 
that anything should be said or done here which could 
help stiU further to mislead them, still further to encourage 
a resistance which creates the very evils that these people 
are fighting to escape. It is because I am sincerely con- 
vinced that a resolution of this character, like the meeting 
at which it was passed, like the whole agitation of which 
that meeting is part, is calculated, if it has any effect at 
all, still further to mislead the men who are engaged in 
carrying on this hopeless struggle, that I feel bound, in 
sending it to Her Majesty's Government, to accompany it 
with this expression of my strong personal dissent. 



CAPE TOWN.— May 7, 1901 

[Shortly after the preceding speech, in the last days of 1900, some of the 
guerilla bands operating on the north of the Orange River broke back into 
Cape Colony. The Dutch population of the northern districts of the 
colony, who had been violently excited by the Bond agitation already 
referred to, joined the invaders in considerable numbers. The experi- 
ences of the previous rebellion were forgotten — all the more readily 
perhaps because of the great leniency shown to the rebels after its sup- 
pression — and most of the young farmers of Dutch race in the north and 
north-west of the colony took the field on the Boer side. The conse- 
quence was a great extension of the area of guerOla warfare in South 
Africa, wliich was kept up thenceforward by roving bands, now at one 
point and now at another, throughout almost the whole extent of Cape 
Colony, until the very close of the war. A very large British force had 
consequently to be employed in that colony ; martial law was pro- 
claimed, first in one district and then in another, tiU it finally embraced 



igoi] CAPE TOWN 33 

the whole country ; constitutional government was completely suspended ; 
and during the whole of 1901 the Cape Parhament did not meet, expendi- 
ture being defrayed by Governor's warrants in anticipation of Parlia- 
mentary sanction. 

Early in 1901 Sir Alfred MUner was transferred from the Governorship 
of the Cape Colony, in which post he was succeeded by Sir Walter Hely 
Hutchinson, to that of the two new colonies, but retaining the High Com- 
missionership, so that the supreme control of British civil administra- 
tion in South Africa stiU rested in his hands. He left Cape Town for 
Johannesburg, which now became his official place of residence, in the 
beginning of February. His first business was to engage, in conjunction 
with Lord Kitchener, in negotiations with the Boer leaders, who, at 
the instance of General Botha, showed some disposition to desist from 
further resistance to the British army. The negotiations, however, 
broke down, owing to the refusal of the Boers to accept the incorpora- 
tion of the Repubhcs in the British Empire. After the failure of negotia- 
tions. Sir Alfred MUner spent several months in organising the civil adminis- 
tration of those portions of the new colonies, including aU the principal 
towns, which had been definitely occupied by the British, and in preparing 
for the extension of that administration to the whole of the country, as 
soon as the war should be over. In May, however, he returned to England 
for some months, nominally on leave, but reaUy in order to confer 
personally with Mr. Chamberlain and other members of His Majesty's 
Government on the South African situation. 

On his way through Cape Town he was entertained by the Town 
Council. The majority of the citizens of Cape Town had always sided 
strongly with the British cause, and at this juncture, and indeed right 
up to the end of the war, they, in common with the other South African 
loyaHsts, were not a Uttle uneasy lest the pro-Boer agitation in England 
should shake the British Government in its determination to bring the 
whole of South Africa definitely and irrevocably under the British flag. 
These sentiments found vigorous expression on the occasion in question, 
and it was in reply to them that Sir A. Milner spoke as follows] : — 

Let us look away from the ever-changing froth on the 
surface of pubhc opinion to the silent depths beneath. 
Nothing in the whole of this weary business is more remark- 
able, nothing is more profoundly satisfactory, than the 
manner in which the British nation throughout the world, 
when at last awakened, have set their teeth in unmistak- 
able earnestness to put an end, once for all, to the uncer- 
tainty, the conflict of incompatible ideals which made 



34 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 7, 

peace and progress in South Africa under the old system 
impossible. Flinching from no sacrifice, daunted by no 
disappointment, turning a deaf ear to the babel of voices 
for ever tending to confuse and smother the one cardinal 
point under a number of side-issues, they have gone straight 
on the way on which they were set from the first, — to make 
an end of this business, to bring one country under one 
flag, with one system of law and government — a liberal 
and a just one ; and to leave no room for the recrudescence 
of the ambitions that have plunged us into those terrible 
disasters from which we are now slowly emerging. If I 
were not absolutely confident of that, I should not be taking 
a return ticket to-day. Were any evidence needed — and 
I do not see how the careful observer could need any 
evidence of this unshakable purpose of the British people 
— I think it would be found in the reception which has 
been accorded to the communications which recently passed 
between the Commander-in-Chief and General Botha. 
For one voice which was raised to blame Lord Kitchener 
or myself, or His Majesty's Government, for having adopted 
too stiff an attitude, there were scores of protests against 
what were regarded^ — ^wrongly regarded, I believe — as 
symptoms of a tendency to purchase peace by a dangerous 
compromise. Mind, I do not admit for one moment that 
these protests were justified. I believe they were due 
almost entirely to a misunderstanding of the actual posi- 
tion. I merely refer to them as evidence of the fact that, 
so far from there being any weakening in public opinion, 
the unmistakable bent of that opinion is to be even over- 
anxious lest anything should be done which could possibly 
jeopardise the stability of the future settlement, even for 
the great object of putting a stop to further bloodshed 
and devastation. I confess that I can sometimes hardly 
repress a smile when I get letters — and I get plenty of 
them just now — ^impressing upon me that it is the interest 
of the loyalists that ought first to be considered. Well, 
gentlemen, if ever there was a case of carrying coals to 
Newcastle ! Here have I been preaching for years, in 



igoi] LONDON 35 

season and out of season, and in the teeth of bitter obloquy, 
the duty of the Empire to the South African loyahsts. 
Times out of number I have called attention to the utter 
folly of the fatal old trick of for ever giving away your 
friends in the idle hope of conciliating your enemies. But 
where I perhaps differ from some of my friends is in a 
tendency to look ahead, in a habit of trying to form a mental 
picture of the time when those who have been our enemies 
in the past — and many of those who are our enemies even 
to-day — ^will no longer be our foemen but our fellow- 
citizens, and many of them I believe sound and true ones. 
It is my impression — -I may be wrong, but I do not think 
so — ^that not a few of those who have been the sturdiest 
in their allegiance to their old flag, when once the conflict 
is over, when once they have accepted the situation, will 
be equally faithful to their new allegiance. And if that 
is so, then surely it is a point of honour for us to let them 
see that we have absolutely no vindictive feeling as regards 
the past ; that if they are once prepared frankly to accept 
their position as citizens of our Empire, the same rights 
and privileges, ay, and the same solicitude for their welfare 
on the part of the Government, will be extended to them 
as to their older fellow-citizens. Once let them be frankly 
and whole-heartedly within the pale, and there should be 
no distinction. The old and the new citizens have got to 
coalesce into one nation ; and all I can say is, that if for 
cherishing these hopes I am called weak and gullible, I 
must just bear the reproach with such equanimity as I 
can, and trust that it will do me no more harm than all 
the things I have been called in the opposite camp, such 
as heartless, bloodthirsty, arrogant, a prancing pro-consul, 
an Egyptian satrap, and all the rest of it. 



LONDON.— May 26, 1901 

[On his arrival in England on leave, on May 25, 1901, Sir Alfred Milner 
was welcomed at Waterloo by the Prime Minister — ^Lord Salisbury — - 
Mr. Chamberlain, and other leading members of the Government, and 



36 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 26, 

received at Marlborough House by His Majesty, who raised him to the 
peerage. The following day he was entertained at a luncheon, at which 
H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge was in the chair, and when again aU the 
principal members of the Government were present. In replying to the 
toast of his health Lord MUner said] : — • 

Your Royal Highness, Mr. Chamberlain, my Lords, Ladies, 
and Gentlemen, — I am so taken aback by the reception 
which has been given to me yesterday and to-day that I 
cannot find words, and, what is more, I am afraid I cannot 
find ideas altogether suitable to the occasion. To tell the 
honest truth, I am rather ashamed to be here at aU with 
a big unfinished job awaiting me and with so many men, 
my fellow-workers, but in positions far more dangerous 
and more physically exhausting than my own, who are not 
able to take the rest which they both deserve and need. 
In these circumstances it would have been more pleasant 
to me, and, I believe, in a rational world it would have 
seemed better to all of us, that I should have arrived, and 
stayed, and returned in the quietest possible manner. But 
I fully recognise that, in an age when it seems impossible 
for many people to put a simple and natural interpreta- 
tion upon anything, my doing so would have been mis- 
construed, and misconstrued in a manner and to a degree 
which would have been injurious to the interests of the 
State. If the fact that the leave that I asked for — accorded 
certainly in the kindest manner, but with the most evident 
reluctance on the part of His Majesty's Government — if 
this hard-begged holiday could be represented as a veiled 
recall, then, of course, it was obvious that, had I taken the 
proverbial hansom from Waterloo to my old chambers, 
that very harmless action would have been trumpeted over 
two continents as evidence of my disgrace. It is hard, it 
is ludicrous that some of the busiest men in the world 
should be obliged to occupy their time, and that so many 
of my friends and well-wishers should be put to inconveni- 
ence — and on a day, too, when it would be so nice to be 
in the country — ^merely in order to prove to persons with 
an ingrained habit of self-delusion that the British Govern- 



I90I] LONDON 37 

ment will not give up its agents in the face of the enemy, 
and that the people of this country will not allow themselves 
to be bored into abandoning what they have spent millions 
of treasure and so many precious lives to attain. All I 
can say is that if it was necessary — I apologise for it, I am 
sorry to be the centre of a commotion from which no man 
could be constitutionally more averse than myself — I say, 
if it was necessary, I can only thank you heartily for the 
kindliness and the cordiality with which the thing has been 
done. I feel, indeed, that the praises which have been 
bestowed, the honours which have been heaped upon me, 
are beyond my deserts. But the simplest thing to do 
under these circumstances is to try to deserve them in the 
future. In any case, I am under endless obligations. It 
is difficult to say these things in the face of the persons 
principally concerned, but I feel bound to take this oppor- 
tunity, especially in view of the remarks which have been 
made in certain quarters, to express my deep sense of 
gratitude for the manner in which His Majesty's Govern- 
ment, and especially my immediate chief, have shown me 
great forbearance and given me support, most prompt at 
the moment when it was most needed, without which I 
should have been helpless indeed. And I have also to 
thank many friends, not a few of them here present and 
some not present, for messages of encouragement, for 
kindly words of suggestion and advice received at critical 
moments, some of which have been of invaluable assistance 
to me, and have made an indelible impression upon my 
heart. I am afraid if I were to refer to all my benefactors 
it would be like the bidding-prayer and you would all lose 
your trains. But there is one hint which I may take from 
the bidding-prayer. Not only in this place, but at all 
times and in all places, I am specially bound to remember 
the devotion of the loyalists — ^the Dutch loyalists if you 
please, and not only the British — of the loyalists of South 
Africa. They responded to all my appeals^to act and, harder 
still, to wait. They never lost their cheery confidence in 
the darkest days of our misfortunes. They never faltered 



38 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 26, 

in their fidelity to a man, of whose errors and failings they 
were necessarily more conscious than anybody else, but of 
whose honesty of purpose they were long ago and once 
for all convinced. If there is one thing most gratifying 
to me on this memorable occasion, it is the encouragement 
which I know the events of yesterday and of to-day will 
give to thousands of our South African fellow-countrymen, 
like-minded with us, in the homes and in the camps of South 
Africa. Your Royal Highness, Mr. Chamberlain, Ladies, 
and Gentlemen, — I am sure you will not desire me to enter 
into any political questions to-day. More than that, I 
really have nothing to add to what I have already said and 
written — I fear with wearisome iteration. It seems to me 
that we are slowly progressing towards the predestined 
end. Latterly it has appeared as if the pace was somewhat 
quickening, but I do not wish to make too much of that or 
to speak with any too great confidence. However long the 
road, it seems to me that it was the only one to the object 
which we were bound to pursue, and which seems now 
fairly in sight. What has sustained me personally — if 
your kindness will allow me to make a personal reference — 
what has sustained me personally on the weary road is my 
absolute, unshakable conviction that it was the only one 
which we could travel. Peace we could have had by self- 
effacement. We could have had it easily and comfortably 
on those terms. But we could not have held our own by 
any other methods than those which we have been obliged 
to adopt. I do not know whether I feel more inclined to 
laugh or to cry when I have to listen for the hundredth 
time to these dear delusions, this Utopian dogmatising, 
that it only required a little more time, a little more patience, 
a little more meekness, a little more of all those gentle 
virtues of which I know I am so conspicuously devoid, 
in order to conciliate — ^to conciliate what ? — panoplied 
hatred, insensate ambitions, invincible ignorance. I fully 
beHeve that the time is coming — Heaven knows how we 
desire to see it come quickly — when all the qualities of the 
most gentle and forbearing statesmanship which are pos- 



I90I] LONDON, THE GUILDHALL 39 

sessed by any of our people will be called for and ought to 
be applied in South Africa. I do not say for a moment 
there is not great scope for them even to-day, but always 
provided that they do not mar what is essential for success 
in the futiure, the conclusiveness of the final scenes of the 
present drama. And now I am afraid, after all, I have 
trespassed on the field of politics, not, I hope, at any great 
length. I will stop short and only once more thank you, 
which I do from the bottom of my heart, for the great 
cordiality of your welcome home, which has exceeded all 
my deserts and thrown me on my beam-ends, being contrary 
to all my expectations. 



LONDON, THE GUILDHALL.— July 23, 1901 

[On July 23rd of that year, Lord Milner was presented with the freedom 
of the City of London. In the course of his speech, acknowledging this 
honour, he said] : — 

It is difficult for me, without seeming to use exaggerated 
language, to express how deep is my sense of the greatness 
of the honour just conferred upon me. The freedom of 
the City of London — the premier city of the British Empire — 
— is one of the greatest, as it is one of the most coveted 
distinctions that can be bestowed upon any pubhc servant. 
The fact that you have done me this great honour is 
a fresh proof of the wonderful generosity with which the 
British people are disposed to treat those of their feUow- 
coiuitrymen who are called upon, whether in a military 
or civil capacity, to battle for the interests of the Empire 
abroad, especially when they seem to be confronted with 
great difficulties. The impulse to back a man who is 
thought to be trying to do his best in a tight place, 
the tendency to appreciate his efforts, to sympathise 
with his difficulties, not to be too much down on his 
mistakes, is a national characteristic. I do not mean 
to say that it is an absolutely universal attribute. We 



40 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [july 23, 

have now among us, as we have had in all times 
of great external pressure, a certain section of the 
community who are predisposed to think the worst of 
their fellow-countrymen — ^to believe readily every accusa- 
tion against them, to attribute preposterous motives to 
them, and to give vent to anti-national bias in language 
vying in intemperance with that of the subsidised traducers 
of Great Britain in foreign lands. But these aberrations 
only serve to bring out in stronger relief the very different 
temper which animates the great bulk of the nation. It 
would be gross ingratitude in any public servant, exposed 
though he might be to the sort of criticism which I have 
just described, if he were to make an outcry, or to pose 
as a martyr, when he has such splendid compensation on 
the other side in the kindly, forbearing, sympathetic 
judgment of the great majority of his countrymen, whose 
approval is at once the highest reward and the strongest 
encouragement which can be accorded to him. 

The great national issue which lies at the bottom of the 
South African War is, I believe, now recognised by the vast 
majority of thinking men. It may not even now be as 
clear as it wiU appear in the pages of history, but for aU 
practical purposes it is evident already. And that issue 
having once been clearly raised, there is virtually no differ- 
ence of opinion among the great majority of the British 
people as to the answer which must be given with regard 
to aU the main questions involved. Deep and universal 
as is the longing for peace, anxious as we all are to make 
conditions easy to every honourable enemy, there are, I 
think, few indeed who would be wiUing to purchase peace 
by any concessions that might compromise the future, or 
to run the risk of popularising rebellion by treating repeated, 
deliberate, and crime-stained treason as a venial offence. 
There is surely an immense difference, morally speaking, 
between those stout old burghers who stiU adhere to their 
original leaders in the ex-Republics, and the roving ruffians 
— British subjects if you please — who are harrying their 
fellow British subjects in our own colonies. But side by 



igoi] CAPE TOWN 41 

side with the general determination to bring this struggle 
to an honourable and a conclusive close, there is, if I do 
not greatly misread the minds of my fellow-countrymen, 
a no less general resolve to treat the burghers of the two 
late Republics, when the war is over, with such fairness 
and even with such generosity as will help them to accept 
the position, and, in the long run, to acquire the senti- 
ment, of British citizenship. We must show them — we 
will show them — ^in the noble words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 
that ' if they have lost their independence, they have not 
lost their freedom.' Now these are, I believe, points of 
almost general agreement among the British people to-day, 
irrespective of party. And, last but not least, there is 
now a general recognition, which at one time was certainly 
far from being strong enough, of the true character and 
the splendid devotion to the Empire of the South African 
loyalists, Dutch as well as English ; of their importance 
to us, and of our duty to them. Let us beware in trying 
to win — as I believe we shall win — the hearts of our former 
enemies, lest we alienate the confidence of those who have 
all along been our friends. For my own part, I have great 
confidence in the efficacy of impartial and incorruptible 
government, of a bold development of the vast natural 
resources of the country, and of the gradual and prudent 
introduction of self-governing institutions, to heal old sores, 
to create new interests, and gradually to bring divers 
sections of the people to co-operate for the good of their 
common country. 



CAPE TOWN.— September 2, 1901 

[From a speech in reply to the Civic Welcome given to Lord Milner 
on his return to South Africa.] 

. . . The people of South Africa have the future of South 
Africa in their own hands. The people of South Africa — 
the loyal people of South Africa — can make what they wiU 
of this country, and should do all they can to establish here 



42 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

a great free nation, one of a group of nations individually 
independent, but associated in a permanent, indissoluble 
federation, under the greatest and most venerable of exist- 
ing monarchies. 



MARITZBURG.— October 15, 1901 

[Although he had never personally visited Natal, the relations between 
the High Commissioner and the people and government of that colony 
throughout the crisis had been very intimate, and there was no part of 
South Africa in which Lord Milner's pohcy, both before and during the 
war, had been more cordially supported. Natal, moreover, was at this 
time the temporary home of a considerable number of the Transvaal 
British, who had been expelled at the outbreak of war and were still 
unable to return. 

Lord Milner made only two speeches of any importance during thia 
visit to Natal — at Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Only very imperfect 
reports of these speeches are extant ; indeed, in the case of the Maritzburg 
speech nothing is preserved except the following sentences, deHvered in 
the course of a reply to an address from the citizens.] 

It seems a strange thing that I should have been four years, 
and more than four years in South Africa, without ever 
entering Natal, especially when I remember that during 
more than half of that time I have been so intimately 
associated in public affairs with the loyal population of 
this colony, and have learnt to regard them as such staunch 
aUies of the High Commissioner, and such steadfast sup- 
porters of the Imperial cause. I will not attempt to express 
to-day what, in common with all the loyaUsts of South 
Africa, in common with all friends of the British Empire 
throughout the world, I feel with regard to the services of 
this colony to the common cause. Eloquent tributes have 
been paid to your services and to your brave endeavours ; 
the greatest statesmen of Great Britain have dwelt upon 
this theme in stirring language ; and, more than that, your 
sovereign has expressed to you his recognition of the value 
of the loyalty of Natal. If you will allow me to make the 
remark, I felt as proud as if I had myself been a Natalian 
when I read this well-deserved compliment to your patriotism . 



I90I] MARITZBURG 43 

It is a pleasure to me to make the personal acquaintance 
of the people of Natal ; it has also been a satisfaction to 
see with my own eyes the land at a time when it is in 
its greatest beauty. When I woke up this morning — not 
very late — and looked for the first time upon the green 
fields of Natal, and on signs not too common in South 
Africa to-day of peaceful cultivation and prosperity, it 
was the fairest spectacle that my eyes have looked on for 
many and many a day. It is a pleasure to think that 
as Natal was the first to bear the brunt of the war, she is 
also the first in recovery and recuperation. I cannot help 
thinking of a remark which is much too often heard nowa- 
days, that loyalty does not pay in South Africa. It is an 
odious remark, because it seems to suggest that loyalty 
is a question of pounds, shillings, and pence, and yet I am 
sure that the most loyal of loyalists would hasten to 
repudiate that interpretation. At the same time, though 
loyalty does not work for reward, it is an evil state of things 
in which loyalty lacks its reward, in which disloyalty is 
able to crow over it. But is that really the situation in 
South Africa to-day ? I know that many loyal people 
have suffered, alas ! that many are still suffering. Who 
knows it better or feels it more keenly than I do ? But in 
the meantime if loyalty is suffering, can it be said that 
treason has cause to rejoice ? Does it pay ? I wish those 
people who speak so glibly about loyalty not paying would 
reflect and compare the condition of Natal — ^perhaps not 
aU we could wish, but still rescued, promising, prosperous 
— ^with the terrible condition of those wide districts in the 
sister colony in which rebellion has been rife. Certainly 
the condition of those districts is sad and distressing to us. 
It is more distressing to their inhabitants, thousands of 
whom are ruined to-day for taking the part of rebels and 
traitors rather than loyalists. 

But it will not be your wish that I should go at large into 
political questions. It always seems to me one of the 
most severe handicaps of public men, that they are expected 
to make so many speeches. To make a speech on a subject 



U SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 21, 

about which you know much, or want to say something, is 
all very well; but to make speeches at large on compli- 
mentary occasions is to move among pitfalls. And so, 
with your permission, I do not propose to put my foot into 
it to-day. And there is an excellent reason why I should 
not attempt to do so, and that is that the object of my 
visit to Natal is rather to make acquaintance with your 
minds than to expose any views of my own. I have not 
come here to lecture, but to learn. After all, I think that 
what I want is pretty notorious by now. I want a peaceful, 
prosperous South Africa, one great community under the 
British flag. That, I presume, is what you all want, and 
that is the end towards which we have got to direct our 
steps in future. But the first condition of sound co-opera- 
tion is a frank exchange of views and mutual confidence. 
And so I have come to try by such an exchange of views 
to ensure our working together cordially in the future for 
the union of South Africa. If we are to have a united 
South Africa, it cannot be by any dictation from without. 
The people of South Africa must accomplish it for them- 
selves. And they must not approach the question as 
Natalians, or as Rhodesians, or as Cape Colonists, but as 
South Africans. 

DURBAN.— October 21, 1901 

[Six days after his reception at Maritzburg — see pre\dous note — Lord 
Milner received a similar public welcome at Durban, in acknowledging 
which, he spoke as follows] : — 

I WISH I could have congratulated you when coming here 
to-day on the fact that not only Natal but all South Africa 
was at rest ; but I felt that I ought not to delay my visit to 
Natal until it was possible to say that the war was over. 
In a formal sense it may never be over, but may just slowly 
burn itself out, as it is doing now. In the subsidence of 
every great conflagration you may see the flames keep break- 
ing out over and over again, first in one place and then in 
another, and some of these spurts are very fierce and look 



igoi] DURBAN 45 

very alarming, but still they come to nothing, because 
there is nothing left for the fire to feed upon, and the 
moment the hoses are turned on they die down. We 
have had such an experience lately, and we must be pre- 
pared to have such experiences again. But regrettable as 
it is that lives should still be lost from day to day, regret- 
table as it is that large parts of South Africa should be in 
a state of ruinous disorder, I think it would be a great 
mistake to allow these circumstances to prevent our gradually 
resuming our normal life, and re-starting in the conquered 
territories not only industry but even to some extent 
agriculture. More is being done in that respect than people 
generally are aware of, but personally I am of opinion that 
still more can and ought to be done in the near future, and 
that we ought to show ourselves masters of the house 
which we have taken by rebuilding it and beginning to 
live in it. 

I have one charge to bring against Natal, but it is a very 
serious charge. My charge against the people of Natal is 
that there are not enough of them. I know it may appear 
unreasonable to complain of lack of numbers in view of 
the sea of faces now before me. I know I shall be told 
to look at your towns, to look at Maritzburg, to look above 
all at Durban. I shall be told to see how they are extend- 
ing in every direction, how their prosperity increases, and 
how their population increases. Quite true, and it is 
deeply satisfactory and a subject for rejoicing and con- 
gratulation ; but that is not all that has to be thought of. 
How about the land of Natal ? It is called a small country, 
and it may appear small compared with some of the vast, 
though much less fertile, territories which adjoin it ; but 
there are, I believe, exclusive of Zululand (to which I don't 
wish to refer because that is a separate subject), twenty 
thousand square miles of it at least, and how many people 
are there on it ? Of course we have not a very accurate 
census, but I have inquired of those who ought to know 
best, and I think I am safe in saying there are not twenty 
thousand white people outside the large towns, and certainly 



46 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 21, 

not more than one white person engaged in agriculture for 
every square mile ; or, if you look not on men, women, and 
children, but at men only, one man for every four square 
miles. I say without hesitation it is not nearly enough. 
I am perfectly well aware that the bulk of the manual 
labour in this country must be done, not by white men, 
but by the coolie and by the Kaffir ; but I say that the 
white population on the land in Natal is greatly insufficient 
adequately to do, as it ought to be done, even that work 
which is proper for the white man, and which the white 
man alone can properly perform. There are not enough 
of you, and, what is more, unless the people themselves 
take this matter up and impress it upon their public men, 
there never wiU be enough. Why should your experience 
be different from that of the other great colonies of the 
British Empire ? They have all found that town popula- 
tions and industrial populations increase of their own 
accord, but that in order to increase the population on the 
land, and especially in order to bring upon the land settlers 
of the right quality, State direction and State encourage- 
ment are necessary. You must have governmental action 
if you want to see the same results as the great colonies 
beyond the seas have achieved. If you want to remove 
from Natal the reproach, which is common to all the 
colonies in South Africa, namely that they are not making 
enough use of their land, you must take the same course 
as other colonies have taken, and give active encourage- 
ment to settlers of the right sort, the right race, and the 
right principles, to come and settle among you and strengthen 
you. And remember that the present time is an unparalleled 
opportunity. We have now in South Africa thousands of 
men who would make excellent settlers. I do not believe 
that you have only got to put a man, whatever he may be 
and whatever previous experience he may have had, upon 
the land, and that he will necessarily make a good settler. 
It wants a special kind of man, a man of special capacity 
and special experience. But among the thousands, who 
are at present temporarily in this country as a consequence 



igoi] DURBAN 47 

of the war, there are great numbers who have just the 
capacity and experience that are required, who would be 
willing to settle, who are anxious to settle, who only want 
encouragement to settle ; and you have need of these men. 
Now I am not preaching anything which I am not per- 
fectly prepared to practise. Let me tell you this : the 
Governments of the new colonies will be only too anxious, 
as soon as the time is ripe, to attract as many as they can of 
these suitable settlers. Now I am not sure that I am not 
giving away a good thing by saying what I do to-day to 
the people of Natal ; but my feeling is this, that I can't look 
upon any of these questions from the point of view of one 
South African colony, even if I happen to be personally 
charged with its affairs, more than from that of another. 
I look at these questions from the broad South African 
point of view. I see these suitable men, this possible great 
and useful addition to our South African population, and 
I want to see them spread abroad over the country in all 
the colonies, strengthening everywhere the progressive and 
loyal elements of the population, and everywhere helping 
to give to the land that fair chance, that proper treatment, 
which is required before you can attain to that height of 
material development to which you are entitled and which 
is before you. I look upon it as a question of material 
prosperity, and also, to be honest, I look upon it even more 
as a great political question. From that point of view I 
am anxious to reinforce Natal in the general interests of 
South Africa. What we want is a strong Natal, and you 
must forgive me if I have spent rather a long time this 
afternoon in trying to point out to you in what direction 
you must look to increase that strength. We want a 
strong Natal to co-operate in the production of a strong 
united South Africa, that ideal to which we all look, and 
towards which in my last words to-day I wish to direct 
your attention, whether you be refugees from the Transvaal, 
or people of Durban or other parts of Natal — the ideal of 
a great united nation, one of a group of sister nations 
spread throughout the world, united and not divided by 



48 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [jan. 8, 

ocean, each independent in its own concerns, all indis- 
solubly allied for a common purpose, all free and willing 
subjects of the most ancient and august monarchy in the 
world — ^what we mean in short by that great term, the 
British Empire. 



JOHANNESBURG.— January 8, 1902 

[The following speech, the last of any importance delivered by Lord 
Milner before the end of the war, can only be understood in connection 
with the very extraordinary condition of the Transvaal at that time. 
GueriUa warfare was still going on throughout the greater part of the 
country, and though the strength of the Boer resistance was being steadily 
worn down by the strategy of Lord Kitchener, the Boers continued from 
time to time to achieve small but dramatic successes — the capture of a 
convoy, or the ambushing and rout of an incautious column — ^which greatly 
impressed the South African and still more the British public, and led to 
a mistaken behef that the end of the war, which had already lasted so 
much longer than at the outset seemed possible, was much further oflE 
than it actually was. 

At the same time, with war stiU raging all around them, the people of 
Johannesburg were busily resuming their former industry. The mines 
were resuming work, business was once more becoming active, and there 
was a constant pressure upon the Governor, both to permit the return of 
a greater number of the British exiles than the mihtary authorities, with 
the difficulty of keeping up suppHes always before them, thought wise ; 
and to proceed with the organisation of civic life, and with all sorts of 
municipal improvements, suitable to normal conditions and to times of 
peace. 

Under these circumstances the position of the head of the civU adminis- 
tration, who was at the same time responsible for advising the Home 
Government about the general conduct of South African afEairs, was a 
very difficult one. He had to do his best to satisfy the civil population 
anxious to increase its numbers and restore the ordinary course of busi- 
ness, subject to the paramount demands of the military authorities, who 
were with justice intent solely on finishing the war. At the same time, 
he had to contend with a growing tendency both in South Africa and at 
home, but especially at home, to take a despondent view of the dura- 
tion of the war, and to lend an ear to insidious suggestions for shortening 
it, by making advances to the enemy, involving the sacrifice of some part 
at least of the objects for which the war was being waged. He was 
convinced that any attempt at compromise at this stage was both unwise 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 49 

and unnecessary, that it would not shorten but prolong the struggle, and 
that it only needed a Httle more persistence, as indeed proved to be the 
case, to bring the struggle to an end. A banquet, given by the newly 
appointed Municipal Council to celebrate the resumption of civic life in 
Johannesburg, gave him an opportunity of expressing his views on these 
several subjects, and it was on this occasion, on the 8th of January 1902, 
that the following speech was made] : — 

My best thanks are due to you, Mr. Chairman, for the kind 
and sincere words in which you have proposed my health, 
and to the company for the cordiahty of their reception. 
I feel very deeply the honour of this welcome on the part 
of all the combined great bodies of Johannesburg, and I 
appreciate its auspicious unanimity. We meet to-night 
under very unique conditions, in the centre of a country 
devastated by a war of exceptional length and destructive- 
ness, and yet in a hopeful spirit. Every one here present 
has suffered to a greater or lesser extent ; almost every one 
has had losses — I am not thinking so much of material 
losses, which are almost wholly retrievable, as of human 
and personal losses, to which one almost hesitates to refer. 
There are gaps in the ranks of the citizens of Johannesburg. 
Some of the best known, some of the most respected, the 
most beloved, men of ability, of character, of great public 
spirit, as well as many others less conspicuous but not less 
admirable in their courage and devotion, have fallen victims 
to war, or to its fell companion, pestilence. Their graves 
are scattered over South Africa. Some day I trust a 
worthy memorial will be erected to them in this city, which 
is commonly supposed to care only for gold, but which in 
my experience is second to none in its respect for manhood. 
In any case, they have a monument in our hearts, and if 
they could speak to us we should doubtless know that that 
was what they valued most. 

This is not the only shadow which rests upon us. There 
is the shadow of the many bitter disappointments of the 
past two years, and of the grave anxieties of the future. 
If, in spite of all these, a hopeful spirit is prevalent among us, 
if men are bracing themselves up to face the problems before 

D 



50 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [jan. 8, 

them with a confident belief in their capacity to solve these 
problems, what is the cause ? I think it is not merely the 
fact of the improved external conditions, the fact that 
communications are freer, more stamps are dropping, more 
people are returning to their homes. There is a deeper- 
lying reason than that. It is the feeling that the storm- 
cloud which so long hung over South Africa has burst. 
The storm is not yet over, but it has already cleared the 
air, and men breathe more freely than they did in the 
thunder-laden atmosphere of the past. The great cataclysm 
is behind and not before us, and it would require an almost 
inconceivable degree of folly and mismanagement ever to 
lead South Africa up to a similar disaster. I do not deny 
that there are counsellors who, if they were listened to, 
might accomplish even that extraordinary feat. The post- 
Majuba settlement still has its admirers, and though they 
do not aspire to revive it in all its beauty, they still look 
forward to producing a very fair reproduction. They 
regretfully admit that we have all got to live under one 
flag, but they are fuUof ingenious suggestions, by which 
that symbol of imity may be made to mean as little as 
possible, and the old political dualism may be kept up in 
substance if not in form. But the people of Great Britain 
will have none of this. The people of Great Britain are 
not going over to the pro-Boers. Those worthy people 
make a great noise ; they encourage the enemy — 'they 
give support to the campaign of calumny with which we 
are assailed in foreign countries. At home they darken 
counsel ; they may even to some extent weaken action ; 
but they produce no durable and effective impression upon 
British pubHc opinion, which remains as sound as ever 
on South African questions — hating the war, regretting 
but recognising its necessity, determined not to be cheated 
of its results. 

Of course there are moments of despondency — can it 
be wondered at under the circumstances ? — and the friends 
of the enemy play upon them for all they are worth. One 
of their genial devices is to pretend that the war is never 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 61 

coming to an end unless we go on our knees to the enemy 
and ask them to stop. The war, gentlemen, will end all 
the quicker if we rely simply on steady physical pressure 
without fidgeting about negotiations. It is no use to 
threaten, it is no use to wheedle. The only thing is imper- 
turbably to squeeze, and to keep our clemency and our 
concihation — both excellent qualities in their place — for 
the Boers who surrender, instead of lavishing our blandish- 
ments on those who still continue to fight. But these 
prophets of evil are not satisfied with dwelling upon the 
endlessness of the war. Even more persistent lamenta- 
tions are devoted to the terrible state of things which is 
going to follow it. It is a curious fact that the anti-national 
party in Great Britain is always in the doleful dumps. 
Years ago, and for years, they were always blubbering 
about Egypt. They drew such a dreadful picture that I 
almost think I began blubbering myself. But that was a 
long time before I knew anything about the subject. We 
have got to make up our minds that for the next year or 
two the same persistent jeremiads will have to be listened 
to about South Africa. We must put up with them with 
what patience we can. For my own part, gentlemen, I 
do not believe in this terrible future. 

The task of the soldier has been one of almost incon- 
ceivable difficulty, but given a clean finish the task of the 
statesman will not be equally difficult. I am the last 
man in the world who has any interest in minimising its 
difficulties, and I am not minimising them. The task will 
be laborious ; it wiU take much time. But there is nothing 
insoluble, to my mind, about its many problems, provided 
that the peoples of the Empire retain the same clearness 
of sight with regard to South African matters as they have 
already shown patience and resolution. The danger of 
our getting in a muddle is not here ; the danger is on the 
other side, and it consists in this, that the people at home 
may not see South African matters in their true propor- 
tions. I say deliberately the people at home, for I see no 
similar tendency in our great sister colonies. Their strong 



52 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [jan. 8, 

common-sense patriotism is a great stand-by, not only 
on the field of battle. But, then, they have no pro-Boers 
to bemuse them. The worst and the most dangerous of 
all the dis-services which that party has rendered to our 
country, is that by their eternal clamour they keep the 
thoughts of their countrymen with regard to South Africa 
in one particular rut. They will never convert them to 
pro-Boerism, but they do make the figure of the Boer loom 
too large in the British imagination. ' Will this form of 
settlement conciliate the Boers, or will that form of settle- 
ment conciliate them better ? ' ' Such and such a policy 
may be all very well, but will it annoy the Boers ? ' Morning, 
noon, and night it is Boers, Boers, Boers. But what of 
all the rest of South African humanity ? What of the 
people of Natal ? What of the people of Rhodesia ? What 
of the loyalists of the Cape, including the Dutch loyalists — 
who feel very bitterly that with the tendency to take sham 
loyalty for true coin, the existence of some true coin is apt 
to be forgotten ? What after all of this little place ? And 
what of those of our enemies who have come over to our 
side, and no inconsiderable number of whom are actually 
fighting for us to-day in order to bring peace to their 
country ? Are we forgetful of the necessity of doing 
nothing which can possibly put them in the wrong ? Of 
course it is needless to say that the moment the Boer 
surrenders the pro-Boer takes no further interest in him 
whatsoever. His interest, his affection, is entirely centred 
in the Boers who are still fighting, and in their dependants ; 
but as a nation, we really cannot indulge this high degree 
of altruism at the expense of our friends. I do not mean 
to say that a man ought to allow himself to be led even 
by his friends. A great politician once said : ' Any man 
can stand up to his opponents ; give me the man who has 
the courage to stand up to his friends,' and there is a deep 
truth in that. But he did not say : ' Give me the man 
who leaves his friends out of account.' It would be absurd 
to suppose that the people of Great Britain do not care 
about the loyalists of South Africa. Never has any country 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 53 

made such tremendous sacrifices for a small and distant 
section of its people. But the people of Great Britain may 
possibly be tempted, taking for granted the attachment 
of the South African loyahsts, to think too exclusively 
in the immediate future about winning over those who 
have opposed them. That would be a great mistake, 
and it would be a gratuitous mistake, because the bulk of 
South African Britishers are themselves conciliatory in 
their attitude. They do not want to eat the Boers. They 
are perfectly aware that they must remain an important 
element, though they will no longer be the dominant 
element. What is more, they have a shrewder notion of 
how really to win them than some of the theorists at home. 
I know that in saying this I shall be told I am showing 
my usual want of impartiality. But it has never occurred 
to me to be impartial as between the friends and the enemies 
of the British connection. I am as partial to the former 
as apparently the pro-Boers are to the latter. There is a 
total misapprehension on the part of those who tell us that 
what we have to do is to hold the balance even between 
the anti-British party and the anti-Dutch party. There 
is no anti-Dutch party in South Africa, and there never 
has been. There is a pro-British party, including 99 
per cent, of the British and of the better-class Americans 
and Europeans, and a considerable number of the Dutch ; 
and there is an anti-British party, including the rest of 
the Dutch and the international riff-raff. And the true 
policy of Great Britain is to encourage and work through 
the British party, including — ^yes, most decidedly includ- 
ing — ^those of our former enemies who have honestly and 
whole-heartedly thrown in their lot with us, or who may 
yet do so, and thereby add to the attractiveness of that 
party for the waverers on the other side ; while the wrong 
policy is to sow distrust in the British party, and especially 
the Dutch converts to it, by playing up to the irrecon- 
cilables. That is teaching the worst of all lessons, the 
lesson that it pays better to fight Great Britain to the last 
gasp than to agree with her in season. 



64 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [jan. 8. 

Well, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we are all British 
partisans here to-night, and in consequence I feel a very great 
partiaUty for you. I am very much more partial — Heaven 
forgive me — ^to you than I am to General President Steyn, 
or General Botha, or General De Wet — and the form which 
my partiality takes at this moment is a very deep anxiety 
to see you develop to the utmost the grand opportunities 
which this place affords for a great civic life. I think the 
world outside has a very dim conception what these oppor- 
tunities are. The common view of Johannesburg is that 
of a great mining camp, where men go to get rich, and 
from which wise men escape as soon as possible, and I 
do not deny that it will always have the disadvantages 
of any great manufacturing centre ; but what great manu- 
facturing centre has such immense corresponding advan- 
tages ? The abundance of room, the brilliant air, the 
open surrounding country of great natural beauty and 
fertility, still unspoilt, and capable of almost infinite 
improvement — ^with these natural resources of climate, of 
soil, and of scenery ; with your extraordinary wealth, and 
with a vigorous, enterprising, and now a liberated people, 
it would be a strange failure indeed if this did not become 
a city to be proud of, one of the great cities of the world. 
But no government can achieve this for you — ^though a 
bad government might prevent it. The citizens of Johannes- 
burg have got to achieve it for themselves, and my belief 
is that they will achieve it, if only a sufficiently big concep- 
tion of the possibilities of this home of yours, and of your 
duties to it, ' catches on,' if I may venture to use such an 
expression, from the first. Of course the danger is that 
every man will be so busy with his own affairs that only 
the failures and the people ' on the make ' will devote 
themselves to the affairs of the municipality. That will 
be avoided if the leaders of the community realise from 
the first all that is at stake. 

For my own part, I think that the making of a great 
municipality is enough to attract any ambition, but in this 
case the government of the municipality involves questions 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 55 

of the highest politics. For a great Johannesburg — great not 
only in the number but in the character of its inhabitants, 
in their intelligence, their cultivation, their public spirit 
— ^means a British Transvaal. A British Transvaal will 
turn the scale in favour of a British South Africa, and a 
British South Africa may go a long way to consolidate 
the British Empire. That, and all that, is involved in 
the details, sometimes dull details, of your municipal life, — ■ 
in your water supply, your tramways, your parks, your 
schools, in your attaining for yourselves the full equip- 
ment of the highest standard of civilised life. If I might 
be permitted to give my advice to the people of Johannes- 
burg, I should say to them : ' Pitch your ideal sufficiently 
high from the outset ; go for a big thing. Don't be content 
with shabby makeshifts or temporary expedients ; don't 
be content with anything less than making this a model 
city — a city built for permanence, fully equipped with all 
the essentials of health, comfort, and of culture, not only 
for the few but for the great bulk of its inhabitants.' In 
saying this, I don't want you to think that because I live 
in Johannesburg myself, and see what can be made of it, 
I therefore wish to aggrandise this place at the expense 
of other places, of Pretoria for instance, or of the great, 
growing towns of the coast colonies, of Rhodesia, or of 
Natal. My duty is to all South Africa. I shaU never 
cease to preach against particularism, to exhort not to 
any local but to a South African patriotism. But this is 
precisely a case in which the growth of one does not damage, 
but on the contrary advantages, aU the others. That is 
the beauty of the situation. The prosperity which flows 
from here enriches all South Africa, and not its towns only 
but the country — that great, neglected, under-populated, 
under-cultivated country, the interests of which must 
always lie at the heart of any decent government, and 
which certainly requires more direct assistance to make 
the most of itself, than is required by a place like this with 
its immense original resources. 

And now, gentlemen, I have said a great deal about the 



56 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [jan. 8, 

end. Let me, in conclusion, say a few dull, practical words 
about the means. There is a great deal of talk about 
self-government, but this is a matter in which we must 
proceed step by step ; and the first step — ^that which clearly 
is alike the most necessary and the most safe — is to grant 
very wide powers of self-government to this place and to 
Pretoria. But self-government implies popular election, 
and you cannot have a popular election till the people, till 
the mass of the people, have returned, until they have had 
time to turn round and settle in their homes. And yet 
your wants are urgent, and, in the interests of the absent 
people themselves, above all in their interests, it is necessary 
that some of those wants should be immediately attended 
to. It is in order to meet this case that the Government, 
as you are aware, have created here a Council which, 
though not elective, is yet, I believe, truly representative, 
and which, when some additions that are contemplated 
in the early future are made to it, will be more representa- 
tive still. But then I am asked : ' Is it competent for this 
Council, resting on no basis of popular election, to do any- 
thing more than attend to the most ordinary daily require- 
ments of the town, such as removing rubbish or patching 
up a road ? ' I say to that, ' Yes, certainly it is ; go ahead.' 
I do not wish to encourage schemes that are doubtful or 
too ambitious. I do not think it is judicious to frighten 
people by talking of five, or any other number of millions 
of pounds, although, to the Johannesburg of say 1904, five 
millions will not appear a very extraordinary thing. But 
these schemes under consideration are of two kinds — I am 
talking of the big schemes. There are those which, under 
any circumstances, are not yet ripe for solution, such 
matters as water supply and the question of the sewage 
of the town. These could not, in any case, be dealt with 
immediately, although I am in favour, and most strongly 
in favour, of pursuing with the greatest vigour the study 
of them. But there are other matters not so large as 
these perhaps, but still of considerable magnitude, which 
are urgent, and immediately necessary. I refer to such 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 57 

matters as tramways, lighting, the clearance of insanitary- 
areas. You cannot let the enormous population, which is 
going to accumulate here, accumulate in a city of which 
part may become a pest house. If the present Council, 
although it is not elective, sees its way to dealing with 
these questions in an effective and practical manner, then 
I say that I think it would be justified, and, with the 
assistance of the Government, it would be able to raise 
the necessary means. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I cannot go into greater 
detail on this subject to-night. It would be an intolerable 
tax on your patience ; but perhaps I have said enough to 
indicate my general attitude. My feeling is that there is 
an immense amount of work to be done, and that we cannot 
afford to lose any time here in beginning to do it. I know 
there are those who say that all serious constructive work 
must wait for the end of the war. I am precisely of the 
opposite opinion. I do not mean to say that, while the 
war continues, military considerations must not be para- 
mount, and military authority must not prevail. On the 
contrary, I am opposed, under present circumstances, to 
setting up a complete civil government in competition 
with the military ; but subject to military necessities, and 
to the liabihty of all able-bodied British citizens to main- 
tain their mihtary efficiency — a duty which I think it 
unmanly to shirk — subject to this, I am in favour of resum- 
ing as fast as possible the normal life of the community. 
I think we should bestow a fictitious importance upon the 
enemy in their present reduced condition if we allowed 
them to paralyse the whole industry of the country. The 
transition from a state of war to a state of peace seems 
hkely to be gradual. Whether it be shorter or longer, I 
think we ought to use it, to do our best in it with might 
and main, in order to prepare for that season of feverish 
activity — straining aU administrative machinery to the 
utmost — which is sure to come upon us with a rush when 
the time of transition is past. 



58 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 17. 



JOHANNESBURG.— June 8, 1902 

[Mechanical Engineers' Banquet ; in reply to the toast of ' The Land we 
Live in,' coupled with the name of the High Commissioner.] 

I SHOULD like to reply to the toast, not of ' The Land we 
Live in,' which suggests a foreign country, but to the toast 
of ' Our Country.' It is to that toast, to which any remarks 
I may make hereafter, or any few remarks I may make 
to-night, will be directed, and when I say ' Our Country,' I 
hope we shall get into the habit of applying that term not 
merely to the late South African RepubHc, but to the whole 
of South Africa, and to that only as part of a still larger 
whole. I know that sounds a platitude, but though it is 
a platitude in speech, it is the very reverse of a truism in 
action. One cannot but be struck, almost every day, by 
the extraordinary difficulty which many men, who would, 
I am sure, cordially echo the sentiment which I have just 
been expressing, seem to feel in carrying that out in practice. 
I foresee that this is one of the points about which a real 
effort has got to be made in the future. We should always 
try to develop the wider patriotism, devotion to South 
Africa as a whole and as a part of a world-wide Empire. 



JOHANNESBURG.— June 17, 1902 

[In proposing the health of Lord Kitchener at a Farewell Banquet 
given to him at Johannesburg after the conclusion of peace.] 

Mr. Care, Lord Kitchener, and gentlemen, I seem to be 
rather hurrying the proceedings. My excuse is that the 
guest of the evening, with whose feelings in this respect I 
entirely sympathise, is anxious to get over the speeches 
and enjoy his cigar in peace. I have been instructed to 
state that the toast which I am about to propose is described 
on the toast list with a slight inaccuracy ; it ought to be 
not simply ' General Viscount Kitchener,' but ' the Army, 
coupled with the name of Lord Kitchener.' I am bound 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 59 

to say it seems to me to make extraordinary little dijBfer- 
ence, as I cannot quite imagine the state of mind which 
could at the present moment think of the British Army 
without thinking of Lord Kitchener. Well, however you 
put the toast, it is one which seems to me not to require 
any lengthy or elaborate eulogy. The British nation 
throughout the world is unanimous in its gratitude to and 
its admiration for the South African Field Force — that 
great army composed of loyal subjects of the king from 
all quarters of the globe, which has just brought a struggle 
of stupendous difficulty to a triumphant conclusion. The 
British nation throughout the world is unanimous in 
its appreciation of the courage, the cheerful endurance 
of hardships, the indomitable perseverance and the singular 
humanity of the British Army. The humblest member 
of that army has cause to be proud, and all the rest of us — 
I mean those who, however deeply interested in the war, 
have not been privileged to take part in it — have cause to 
envy the humblest soldier. There is only one more remark 
I would make on this point. I believe, indeed I know, 
that the Army was never stronger or in better fettle, that 
it was never a finer, a fitter, or a more formidable force 
than on the day when the war came to an end. Instead 
of growing weaker while the weary struggle dragged on, 
it grew stronger, as indeed the British Empire has not been 
weakened but strengthened by the conflict. That, gentle- 
men, is a thing which the nation and the army may be 
proud of, but it is also a tribute, and perhaps the greatest 
of all tributes, to the Commander-in-Chief. I believe that 
Lord Kitchener will always look back with profound satis- 
faction upon the splendid fighting machine which he wielded 
with such effect during the latest stages of the war, and 
-the efficiency of which is largely his own work. To say that 
is no disparagement of that other Great Commander, 
who first turned the tide of fortune in our favour, and 
bore the British flag in triumph from the Modder River to 
Pretoria, and who has won a permanent place in our affec- 
tions, by a chivalry and a courtesy not less remarkable in 



60 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 17. 

their kind than his great military gifts. Lord Kitchener 
has had a different, but not a less honourable and even 
more arduous task. We who live in South Africa, who 
know the nature of the country and the quality of our 
former enemies — ^whom we are glad to welcome to-day as 
our fellow-citizens, and ready to receive as our friends — 
we, I say, who know all these things intimately, can realise 
the stupendous difficulties of Lord Kitchener's task. Only 
a will of steel, only an untiring energy grappling day by 
day with a mass of complicated details, such as have seldom 
been crowded into any human brain, only indomitable 
persistence and stoical courage, could have brought him 
through it all to his present complete success. I know 
that it is commonly supposed that men of this temper are 
not so sensitive as their weaker fellows to those slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune by which Lord Kitchener 
has been persistently assailed, and that they can bear more 
because they feel less ; but, if I know Lord Kitchener at 
all, that is not his case. I do not believe that there is any 
man who has been more sensitive to any reverse that has 
befallen British arms, or who has felt more keenly or with 
more personal pain the loss of many gallant officers and 
men than he has done. All the more honour to him that 
he has never let the acuteness of these sorrows and dis- 
appointments deflect him for a moment from the steady, 
unwavering pursuit of his aim. It has been a tremendous 
strain, almost beyond human endurance, but on the other 
side there is also a great reward. I do not refer now to 
those external honours and felicitations to which, I believe, 
he is more indifferent than most men. I refer to the con- 
sciousness of a great task thoroughly completed — a perfect 
piece of workmanship — to the knowledge that he possesses 
in the fullest measure the respect and the confidence of 
all his fellow-countrymen, that his name will go down in 
history as that of one of the foremost of our men of action, 
and last but not least, that he leaves the scene of his 
greatest achievements esteemed, almost beloved, by the 
men whom he fought and conquered. 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 61 



JOHANNESBURG.— June 25, 1902 

[From a speech in reply to the toast of his health as guest of the evening 
at the Transvaal Germans' Fest-Kommers.'] 

One at least of the objects of a meeting of this kind is to 
promote feelings of friendship between the British and the 
Germans in South Africa. Now, Mr. President, I think it 
would be idle to ignore that there has been a time when 
those good feelings were somewhat disturbed by political 
occurrences in this country. The last thing that any of 
us would desire would be to discuss the rights and wrongs 
of the past. We are beginning a new era, and we desire 
to put the past behind us. I may say, speaking for my 
own countrymen, that I do not think any of us who are 
sensible men ever resented the fact that, on the political 
question between England and the late South African 
Republics, German opinion was divided, or that German 
opinion was against us. There are many reasons for that 
difference. I need not go into them. For one reason, the 
Germans in this country were received here with extra- 
ordinary hospitality, and, being always well treated, had 
naturally every ground to sympathise with the State whose 
hospitality they enjoyed. None of us could blame them for 
that. It is true that Englishmen have felt hurt — I, as an 
Englishman, have shared the feeling — not at the political 
opposition or want of sympathy of the majority of Germans 
with regard to the South African question, but at the some- 
what extreme form which that opposition took in Germany, 
We were prepared to accept the fact that Germans might 
think that in the recent war we were in the wrong ; 
but we were undoubtedly astonished — it would be idle to 
deny it — to find that not only did German opinion differ 
from us on the political question, but that it was extraordin- 
arily prone to attribute to us the worst of motives, and to 
credit the English Government, its representatives, and 
the English army with vices and crimes, of which we cer- 
tainly thought we had given little justification for suspect- 



62 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 25, 

ing us. Now I am certain that that feehng was a natural 
one on our part, but I am also certain that the misrepre- 
sentations, which led to the false conception of us, were 
not due in any way to the Germans in this country. 
However they might differ from us on the political question, 
and however they might sympathise with our enemies, 
yet they knew their British acquaintances here too well, 
to suspect the nation to which they belonged of the moral 
defects and barbarities which were attributed to it. 
The political question, therefore, is, I believe, the only 
thing which has divided the German residents in this 
country from the British residents — the political question 
pure and simple. But the political question pure and simple 
is now dead and buried. It has ended with the war and 
with the articles of peace. There is no longer any political 
question which need divide the Germans here resident 
from the British, and, that being the case, I welcome this 
opportunity of assuring our German friends that with the 
disappearance of that ground of difference, so far as I am 
concerned, and, I feel convinced, so far as the vast majority 
of the British in this country are concerned, enmity is at 
an end, and that we not only desire to welcome the Germans 
in this country, but we look forward to the cordial co-opera- 
tion of the German community here, towards the develop- 
ment and the progress of the land we live in. You, sir, 
have said that the Germans are law-abiding people in 
every country in which they dwell. It is perfectly true, 
but I desire to anticipate a great deal more than mere 
law-abidingness on the part of the Germans in this country. 
I take that for granted. I desire something more — and 
that is cordial co-operation and sympathy. I do not wish 
this to be a mere formal relation ; I do not wish it to be a 
mere legal obedience ; I desire that the union between the 
Germans and the British in this country may be a union 
of hearts, and I desire that in the future there may be, 
as there has been in the past, if not in the immediate past, 
such a union between the two nations throughout the 
world. 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 63 

JOHANNESBURG.— July 29, 1902 

The Church in South Africa 

[In reply to a vote of thanks for presiding at a meeting held at Johannes- 
burg on this date, towards the better organisation and greater missionary 
activity of the Church of England in South Africa,] 

I PUT the highest value on organisation. I thinli as a 
nation we attach far too little value to it. Mr. Furse ^ 
has said very truly that the British Empire has tumbled 
up. At this moment of general rejoicing and triumph, 
at this moment when our power as a nation throughout 
the world stands higher, or appears perhaps to stand higher, 
than ever it has done before, I feel that, unless the future 
of the Empire shows a more perfect organisation than 
the past, it may be that it will tumble down. Therefore, 
I am the last man to undervalue organisation, and I appre- 
ciate all that has been said about the necessity of a more 
perfect Imperial organisation, to watch over the Church 
or the Empire. But for all that, there is one thing which 
no amount of organisation can enable us to dispense with, 
and that is live men. Now the impression which has been 
made upon me to-night by the spealsers we have come 
here to listen to — when I heard them they said a great deal 
that I agree with, and perhaps now and then something 
that I disagreed with — the impression made upon me 
throughout is that I have been listening to men of convic- 
tion, men of vitality. Though we have men in the Church 
of England in South Africa of that quality we want more, 
and whatever there may be in organisation — in fact the 
greatest boon which I expect from a more perfect organisa- 
tion is to give us a greater supply of these men, listening 
to whom we can feel that we are in the presence of people 
who really care for and believe in the cause they are urging, 
and who bring it before us in a natural, simple, and, if I 

^ The Rsv. Michael Furse, presently Archdeacon of Johannesburg, now 
Bishop of Pretoria. 



64 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [July 29, 

may say so, unprofessional way, I believe these are the 
men who are wanted everywhere to work in the Church, 
and I feel most strongly they are essentially the men who 
are wanted to produce an effect upon the minds and the 
hearts of the people of a vigorous young community like 
this. I hope a great deal from the mission which is to be 
sent out here, and I trust the gentlemen to whom we have 
listened to-night, who are going back to give churchmen 
in England some idea of what is wanted in that mission, 
will take back this message, and impress above all things 
upon the people at home the class of man that is required 
to produce an effect out here. Now, there is a great deal 
that I might deal with, in the interesting speeches which 
we have listened to to-night ; but there is one thing which 
Mr. Maude said, to which I should like particularly to refer, 
and that was the generous and friendly tone in which he 
spoke of the other Churches, the other Christian Churches 
in this country, and the way in which he appreciated their 
cordial sympathy with the work which he and his colleagues 
are undertaking. Now, I was born a churchman and bred 
a churchman, and though I may be a very poor church- 
man in some ways, my sympathies- — ^my strong sympathies 
— have always been with the Church in which I was born 
and bred, and I have every desire, a most sincere desire, 
to do what little lies in my power to prove that I am in a 
broad sense a good churchman. With all that, I have 
often been pained by the attitude, by a certain attitude of 
superiority which the Church of England has taken towards 
other Christian Churches. There is nothing I detest more, 
there is nothing I think more out of place than any feeling 
of that kind between bodies which are all trying, or which 
ought to be trying, to do the same work, and which ought 
to see that, if there were a hundred workers where there are 
ten, the ground of their endeavour could not possibly be 
covered. If that sort of thing is out of place at home, it 
is totally and hopelessly out of place in the Colonies ; and I 
am delighted to find, from the tone of the speeches delivered 
here to-night, that we need not fear lest the effort — I hope 



1902] JOHANNESBURG 65 

a great and striking effort — which the Church of England 
is going to make in this country, will be marred by any 
sort of intolerance of that description, I think I can tell 
the gentlemen who have addressed us to-night, and who 
will perhaps believe what, in a very halting fashion, I have 
said, that they really have very sincere sympathisers in 
this country who desire cordially to help them. I should 
like to say to them that if they, and those who are coming 
from home, come to us in this spirit, in a spirit of simple 
manliness not untouched by humour, and in a spirit of 
tolerance towards their fellow-workers, they will find an 
amount of sympathy and support in this community of 
which they, even in their most hopeful moments, have 
a very inadequate idea. I believe that it is possible to 
lift — most enormously to lift — the position and the work 
of the Church in this community, if we can only get the 
right men to lead the way. I can assure them that if, 
in their desire to produce a more efficient organisation of 
the Church here and elsewhere, they can put an end to 
our ridiculous jealousies and our frittered efforts, they will 
have my entire sympathy. Indeed they will have the 
sympathy of us all in pushing their great mission in the 
spirit which has been exhibited in their speeches to-night. 



JOHANNESBURG.— May 28, 1904 

The Navy and the Empire 

[In the course of acknowledging a vote of thanks for having presided at 
a Navy League Meeting, addressed by Mr. H. F. Wyatt, travelling 
delegate of the League.] 

I SHOULD like to say something myself on this question, 
but I am deterred by two considerations. The first is that 
it is a question of such profound moment that I hesitate 
to speak about it at all — though it is the sort of question 
one thinks of always — ^without having an opportunity of 
picking my words. And the other reason is this. I feel 
that IVlr. Wyatt, to whose lucid and eloquent explanation 



66 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 28. 

of his case we are much indebted, does not want to hear 
the views of a man hke myself, coming from home, whose 
habitual residence is in England, but that what he cares 
about is an expression of opinion from the people whose 
lives are cast altogether here. Of course, every Englishman 
is deeply interested in the welfare of the Navy ; the Colonies 
also are as deeply interested in that welfare. The whole 
question is : Do they feel, will they come to feel, that 
interest as intensely ? For my own part I beHeve they 
will. I think that here people already — a vast majority 
of them at any rate — do feel very strongly on the subject ; 
and that the speeches of this afternoon are true examples 
of the opinion of Johannesburg. For my own part, if I 
might be allowed very briefly to express the convictions 
which I have on this subject, I should like to take my 
stand on the same platform with Sir George Farrar. I 
echo everything he has said, not only because of the appre- 
ciation he shows of the vast importance of the Navy to us 
all, and of the duty of all of us towards it, but because he 
sees, in the contributions of the Colonies to the Navy, 
something greater still, and that is the federation of the 
Empire. He says that he hopes that this colony will 
some day contribute. A motion has been passed advocat- 
ing a contribution by the Government of the Transvaal. 
What I understand by that is that the Government of the 
self-governing colony of the future should contribute, 
because of course it would not occur to a Crown Colony 
Government — ^being, as it were, representative of the Home 
Government — ^to do any such thing. I sincerely hope 
that when the time comes, though I shall not be here then, 
you will come forward with a contribution, — a large con- 
tribution, but also with the demand to have a voice in 
controUing the Navy, as well as contributing money for 
its support. And that not for your own sake, but for the 
sake of all of us, for the sake of the whole, great, scattered, 
disorganised British race — that great race which is possessed 
of so strong a desire for unity and co-operation, and yet 
has hitherto been so far from finding the proper Jmeans, 



1904] JOHANNESBURG 67 

the proper organisation, to give practical effect to this 
desire. 

Ladies and gentlemen, let us realise the fact that mere 
scattered, paltry contributions — and even those con- 
tributions which are not paltry — ^if they only mean handing 
over a certain sum of money, will not do all we wish to 
do. We want not only that in money all parts of the 
Empire should contribute to the Navy, but that the Navy 
we contribute to should be absolutely as much the Navy 
of South Africa, as much the Navy of Australia, as much 
the Navy of Canada, as it is the Navy of Great Britain. 
Forgive me if I have dwelt upon this subject with perhaps 
excessive warmth, and at perhaps excessive length, but 
I am an Imperialist out-and-out — and by an Imperialist 
I don't mean that which is commonly supposed to be indi- 
cated by the word. It is not the domination of Great 
Britain over the other parts of the Empire that is in my 
mind when I caU myself an Imperialist out-and-out. I 
am an Englishman, but I am an Imperialist more than an 
Englishman, and I am prepared to see the Federal Council 
of the Empire sitting in Ottawa, in Sydney, in South Africa 
— sitting anywhere within the Empire — ^if in the great 
future we can only all hold together. That may be looking 
very far ahead, but it is the only right ideal in this matter. 
Nothing else is really of any use at all, and therefore it is 
not only because of the immediate value of the Navy, not 
only because of its great achievements and traditions, 
which we can never think of without a glow of pride, but 
because it is a political instrument, to bring about, if 
anything can, the effective, live, organic union of aU the 
scattered members of our race, that I am an enthusiast 
for the Navy. And, if I were ten times busier than I am 
— and I am indeed as busy as possible — I should still have 
esteemed it my duty to come here and do what little I 
can to support a cause to which I am so entirely, and have 
been aU my life so whole-heartedly, devoted. 



68 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 22, 

PRETORIA.— March 22, 1905 

[The following speeches are the last which were delivered in South Africa 
by Lord Milner. Early in 1905 it became clear to JiimselE — as it had been 
plain at an earher date to his physician — that the strain of a fifteen hours' 
working-day involved in the immense task of reconstruction in the Transvaal 
and Orange River colonies, could not be longer endured by the High 
Commissioner without the most serious consequences to his health. He 
had clung to his work in South Africa just as long as he was able, and at 
some personal sacrifice. In the autumn of 1903, during his visit to 
England, he had been pressed to succeed Mr. Chamberlain as Colonial 
Secretary in the Unionist Cabinet, and had decHned because of the stronger 
claim of South Africa on his strength and services. But in the beginning 
of 1905 he felt that, in his own words, the state of the weather was not 
such that it need endanger the ship to change its commander. 

His farewell speeches were deHvered at Germiston on March 15, at 
Pretoria on March 22, and at Johannesburg on March 31. The first is 
omitted as being mainly appropriate to the mining audience to which 
it was addressed, and only the last is printed here in its entirety.] 

There are some things which do not grow easier by practice. 
One of them is to reply and to acknowledge adequately a 
reception such as you have just accorded me. Another is 
to reply without an appearance of egotism to a toast of 
this character. I hate speaking about myself, but I am 
afraid that to-night it is more or less unavoidable. 

It is very painful to have to bid you good-bye. I know 
that that remark may sound insincere, because any one 
might say to me : ' If you are so sorry to go, why do you 
refuse to stay ? Are you not going of your own motion ? ' 
Well, the exact truth is, however inconsistent it may 
appear, that I am going on my own initiative, and yet that 
I am going with deep regret. And the explanation is that 
I have, during the last year or two, had repeated warn- 
ings — ^warnings increasingly frequent and increasingly 
urgent — ^that my physical strength — and I have never 
professed to be a Hercules — ^was not equal to carrying the 
burden of my present work for an indefinite time. Not, 
at least, without impaired efficiency. Now I hold that it 
is a man's duty not to go on doing work which he is no 
longer able to do with unimpaired vigour. It is not fair 



1905] PRETORIA 69 

to the work, nor to those with whom he is associated. If 
he can no longer row his weight in the boat he ought to 
get out of it. He has no business to go on working until 
he breaks down. The break-down itself may matter 
only to himself ; but the gradual decline in energy, in 
judgment, in temper, which precedes it, are a nuisance 
to his neighbours, and may be of fatal injury to the State. 

No doubt there are two exceptions to the rule that a man 
is in duty bound not to go on working till he drops. The 
first is this : In a moment of supreme crisis, you must 
just stick to your job at all hazards. I have never doubted 
about that. I regard a man in my position as a civilian 
soldier of the State, and he must take a soldier's chances. 
And there have been such moments, several of them, during 
my day in South Africa. But the present time is not such 
a moment. Many things are anxious, many things are 
critical : they will be so for years. But the state of the 
weather is not such that you cannot change the commander 
without endangering the ship. 

And now for my second exception. A man may feel 
that he ought to stick to his post, even though conscious 
of failing powers, if he believes that he cannot be adequately 
replaced. But that again, is not the case here. Great 
Britain is not so poor in men that she cannot find another 
High Commissioner for South Africa. As a matter of fact, 
as you see, she has found one : ^ a man of the highest char- 
acter, of proved ability, a man who has already served his 
sovereign with conspicuous success in one of the highest 
offices of the State at home, and who, I venture to say, 
when you come to know him, will be both respected and 
beloved throughout this country. If there is one thing 
more than another which could soften for me the blow of 
having to give up work into which I have put my whole 
heart and soul, it is the absolute confidence with which 
I hand it over to so competent a successor. 



^ Lord Selborne, who had just been appointed to succeed Lord Milner 
as High Commissioner. 



70 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 22, 

Now, if I am right in thinking that Pretoria is for 
good and all the administrative centre of the Transvaal, 
a few words about the administration of this colony may 
not be out of place here this evening. That administra- 
tion, I have no hesitation in saying, deserves your confi- 
dence. More than that, I believe it enjoys in a great and 
growing measure the confidence of the public — at any rate, 
of that portion of the public who think for themselves. 
But certainly no stranger coming into the colony and 
ignorant of the conditions, if he formed his judgment 
of the administration from the tone in which it is the 
fashion to speak about it, or to write about it, could possibly 
come to any such conclusion. That, gentlemen, I think 
is a pity. Serious injury, in my opinion, is done to the 
best interests of the Transvaal by this trick — and very 
often it is nothing more than a trick — of perpetual fault- 
finding, this steady drip, drip of depreciation, only diver- 
sified by occasional outbursts of hysterical abuse. I per- 
fectly understand, and I am not now referring to, the abuse 
of people who attack the present Government merely 
because they hate all that it represents. That is simply 
political business — disagreeable perhaps, but natural and 
to be expected. But I should have thought that the mere 
fact that the present Government was inevitably a target 
for the attacks of this section would have induced a little 
more moderation in the strictures of those who are, or at 
least ought to be, its friends. 

And there is another thing to be thought of. Is this 
really the way to improve matters ? He is a bad master 
who is always finding fault with his servants, and he ends 
by being, not better, but worse served. And what, after 
all, are these much-abused officials but the servants of the 
community ? People are not exactly tumbling over one 
another just now to enter the Public Service of the Trans- 
vaal — at least, not the sort of people who wiU be any credit 
to it. And no wonder. Might not a little more generosity 
of judgment be useful in retaining and in obtaining the 
stamp of men we require ? 



1905] PRETORIA 71 

Now, when I say this, do not let any one suppose that I 
have the slightest personal grievance in the matter. On 
the contrary, setting one thing against another, it has 
been my fortune in life to get, on the balance, quite as 
much eulogy as is good for any man, and no doubt more 
than I deserve. Indeed, this carping at the administra- 
tion to which I refer is quite frequently accompanied by 
apologies, and even compliments to myself. It is not my 
fault that everything is wrong, but the fault of my sub- 
ordinates. Now that is a position which I absolutely 
refuse to accept. For the general policy, at any rate, I 
am in the main responsible, while as to its execution I say 
with perfect sincerity that I have been most loyally and 
most ably served. I merit no commendation, and I desire 
none, to the exclusion, much less at the expense of, my 
feUow- workers. Before the tribunal of posterity, as in 
the struggles of to-day, we will stand or fall together. 

And I for one have no fear whatever of the verdict which 
any impartial chronicler will pronounce on our work as a 
whole. Mistakes have been made — ^no doubt, not a few. 
I myself could point out more mistakes than any of the 
cavillers. But it has been truly said that the man who 
never made a mistake never made anything, and we have 
made a great deal. What strikes me about the band of 
workers, of whom I have had the inestimable privilege of 
being the chief, as I look back on the years of restless con- 
structive activity since the restoration of peace, is the 
enormous mass of their achievement, and considering the 
fearful pressure under which it had to be done, the general 
solidity of the work. It is rough work, no doubt, a great 
deal of it. There has been no time for trimming or pohsh- 
ing. But if rough and showing many traces of haste, it 
is solid and bears few signs of scamping. Much of it has 
been costly work, but then one has always to pay extra for 
extra pace, and we have been going full steam ahead the 
whole time. The one thing essential, the one thing impera- 
tive, when we took over this country, a total wreck, with 
half its population in exile, with no administrative machinery 



72 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 22, 

whatever, and, so far as the plant of government was con- 
cerned, with the scantiest equipment of any civilised 
country in the world, was to make it a going concern again 
as soon as possible. 

We could not stand fiddling over small economies while 
people starved. We could not pause to think out the 
precise form and size of our future permanent establish- 
ments. We had to re-start everything at once — ^to get 
the indispensable material at any price, to employ as many 
hands as were necessary at the time and the best we could 
get — ^there was no possibihty of elaborate selection — and 
to leave the drilling, the grading, the weeding out, for a 
period of greater leisure. I say the work has been rough, 
and the work has been costly. But after all the great 
feature of it, the fact that will stand out in history, and 
which has in our day at any rate no parallel, is the colossal 
amount which has been done in the time. It is just because 
it is so enormous in extent that it presents so many points 
to criticism. 

If I were to attempt to tell you all about it, I should keep 
you here all night. It is not a matter of half an hour this, 
not of an after-dinner speech, or of any speech, but of a 
volume or volumes. But what help, I may ask, what 
encouragement, what instruction, have we had in our 
herculean task from the people, who know our business 
so much better than we do, including some who were asked 
to assist us and would not ? And here let me just say one 
word — though it may be a digression — one word of thanks 
and acknowledgment to those members of the public who, 
whether they have criticised the work of the Government 
or not, have at any rate done something more than criticise 
and have lent a powerful hand to get things right. I must 
not leave you under the impression that in speaking of 
my fellow-workers I was thinking only of the official class. 
It has been one of the characteristics of this administra- 
tion, attacked as it is, among so many other things, for 
being autocratic in its spirit and out of sympathy with the 
people, that it has constantly invoked the interest and 



igo5] PRETORIA 73 

assistance of the public. And it has been richly rewarded. 
For it has succeeded in obtaining an amount of assistance 
from outside its ranks such as no really autocratic Govern- 
ment has ever had' — ^volunteer assistance of the most valu- 
able kind, and generally from very busy men who have, 
nevertheless, spent their time and energy lavishly in the 
public service. 

These men, like the merest officials, have not escaped 
from the general atmosphere of captiousness and cavilling. 
But to return to my point. What benefit have we derived 
from that atmosphere ? Is it possible to sum up its 
lessons ? Oh, yes. First of all, directly after the war 
there was a fierce demand that everything should be done 
at once. It was no use saying that even this rich country 
had not unhmited resources, that everybody was already 
being worked to death, that there were some things which 
could not be done well, or done at all, without a large 
amount of previous study and investigation. All these 
were the miserable excuses of an idle, unenterprising, 
unsympathetic, bureaucracy, which knew nothing about 
South Africa. But presently there was a slump. And, 
good heavens ! what a slump that was, according to our 
great and wise and farseeing instructors. Never in the 
history of the world had there been anything so dreadful. 
Deficit was not the word for it. There were going to be 
at least half a dozen deficits. We were rushing helter- 
skelter into bankruptcy. And it was all due to the reck- 
less extravagance of the Administration, to its rashness, 
to its optimism, to the bad way in which officials had been 
engaged, and enterprises started without previous investi- 
gation. It was no use saying that reactions of this kind 
had occurred before, that they were the common experi- 
ence of all countries and governments, that the right thing 
was, while taking in sail, to keep steadily on our course. 
Such arguments were the devices of discredited gamblers 
trying to conceal the extent of their over-speculations. 
But, once again, times have begun to change. Things 
generally are not mending very fast, but they are decidedly 



74 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 22, 

mending. The revenue of the State once more begins to 
show signs of elasticity. And so, with the return of the 
old conditions, up pops again the old piece. Our sins of 
commission are being allowed to sink into the background, 
and the stage is being cleared for another good sound 
rampage over our sins of omission. It is no longer our ex- 
travagance and our restlessness which are the subject of the 
burlesque ; it is once again our parsimony and our sloth. 
Shameful indeed, and calculated to bring a blush to the 
face of every Briton, is the spectacle of an Administra- 
tion which, in its enormously long life of two years and 
three-quarters, has failed to endow this vast raw country, 
which it took over devoid of everything, with conditions 
in every respect similar to those of old civilised countries 
which have accumulated their stock for centuries. * And 
so we go round the gooseberry bush.' 

It may be said that this froth is only on the surface, 
that the extravagant and inconsistent criticisms of a few 
people, who make all the noise, are far from representing 
the real attitude of the sober, silent majority of the com- 
munity. Gentlemen, I know that ; but I know, too, that, 
if they are simply ignored, if we are too contemptuous to 
take any notice of them, they will end by falsifying history 
as they have already created a wrong impression in the 
minds of himdreds of people, who are too busy to study 
official records. What I want is, that the great majority 
of quiet, steady -going people should not take their opinions 
ready-made, but should find a little time to examine things 
for themselves. They would, I think, be astonished to 
realise how far we have travelled in a short time. 

People take many things as a matter of course, which, 
nevertheless, are only the result of the most constant watch- 
fulness, of the most strenuous labour — the profound peace 
which reigns throughout a comitry so lately the scene of 
a devastating struggle, the Statute-book no longer an 
unintelligible jumble, but reduced to reasonable propor- 
tions and an orderly form, the steady, incorruptible adminis- 
tration of justice under a Supreme Court which has no 



1905] PRETORIA 75 

superior in any British colony, the return of our principal 
industry to its old prosperity, the new life which is being 
infused into agriculture — the starting of experimental farms, 
the introduction of high-class stock, the planting of forests 
— the municipal institutions, as liberal as any in the world, 
which have now been created throughout the whole of the 
colony, the free schools containing twice as many children 
as at any previous period, the new provisions for higher 
technical training, the ensuring of an adequate water 
supply for your greatest centre of population, the careful 
scientific study now for the first time being devoted to the 
great problem of irrigation in all its branches. 

I say these things are treated as a matter of course. I 
do not complain of the fact. It is the highest possible 
compliment. But I would just ask you, as the many 
deficiencies of our Public Works are a favourite theme 
of comment, to look at some of the work which has been 
accomplished in that single line. 

We have completed 275 miles of new railways — I 
am speaking now of both colonies — 311 miles are in 
course of construction, and 488 miles are arranged for. 
In addition to this we have spent two and a half millions 
on our existing railways, which were left in a terrible 
condition after the war, and which are now in a better 
state than they ever were. Or to turn to the Transvaal 
only, nearly £300,000 has been spent on the renewal and 
improvement of telegraphs and telephones. Partly, no 
doubt, as a result of that expenditure, the Services under 
the Postmaster-General will in this year, for the first time, 
show a surplus. £420,000 has been spent on schools, 
orphanages, and teachers' quarters, including half a dozen 
very large town schools, between twenty and thirty town 
schools of average size, and no less than 152 farm schools. 
The lunatic asylum, which was a disgrace, is being re- 
placed by one of exceptional excellence. Several new 
hospitals have been built, several existing hospitals 
greatly improved, and a large further sum has been allotted 
for hospital construction. New prisons have been built, 



70 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 22, 

and existing prisons have been enlarged, though the con- 
struction of the big central prison, an urgent necessity, 
has proceeded slowly, mainly owing to the failure of a 
contractor. Immense sums have been spent on the 
improvement of roads in the country districts, which 
were never good, and at the end of the war were in a really 
shocking condition, more than 1300 miles of road having 
undergone a certain amount of repair. Twenty-two solid 
permanent bridges have been constructed. Add to this 
the innumerable minor works which are going on in every 
part of the country, the police barracks, the Government 
Offices, the magistrates' houses, and so on, and you 
will not be surprised that in three years we have spent 
on these objects £1,100,000 out of the Loan, and £1,035,000 
out of revenue, while we are committed to a further expen- 
diture of at least half a million. I know that what has 
been done is only a fraction of what is required, but it 
is no small matter in a short time, and it has taxed the 
energies of the available staff and the available labour 
to the utmost. Even if we had had more money, I do 
not believe that we could have done much more with the 
hands at our disposal. 

I have gone into these matters at perhaps too great length, 
but this is the last occasion on which I may be able to 
address a Transvaal audience on purely local questions. 
In the one speech, which is yet before me, I may have to 
devote myself to matters affecting all South Africa. If I 
may sum up the matter in a few words, it is this : The 
time is near at hand when the people of this country will 
have to take a far greater direct share than hitherto in the 
control of the administration. The time is probably not 
far distant when they will control it altogether. When 
that time comes, there is nothing more important than 
that there should be good relations, zeal and devotion on 
the one hand, a reasonable amount of consideration on the 
other, between the Public Service and the great body of 
citizens who will be its masters. Keep your public servants 
up to the mark by all means, but remember that apprecia- 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 77 

tion is just as potent in keeping people up to the mark, 
yes, and, in the case of the best people, even far more potent, 
than censure. Remember that, and I have no fear but that 
you will be loyally served in the future as you have been in 
the past, and that the good work, which has already been 
done, and which is admittedly only a beginning, will go 
on, mainly, I hope, on the same lines, but with constantly 
improving methods, improving as experience grows and 
pressure diminishes, till the colony has achieved the high 
place for which Nature has undoubtedly destined her 
among the great self-governing communities of the British 
Empire. 

JOHANNESBURG.— March 31, 1905 

I THANK you sincerely for this cordial and most impressive 
welcome. It would be affectation on my part to pretend 
not to be touched by it, especially in view of the character 
of the gathering, the largest of its kind and the most repre- 
sentative of all parts of the country that I can ever recollect 
seeing during the eight years of my stay in South Africa. 
But, sir, as I listened to the kind and eulogistic terms in 
which you referred to my achievements, I experienced a 
feehng of singular embarrassment. It is often the case at 
these moments of retrospect, that while a man's friends 
are indulgently reviewing his performances the man himself 
is thinking all the time of the things he wished to do — 
perhaps tried to do — ^but did not succeed in doing. That 
is my case on this occasion. Browning's words about ' the 
petty done ; the undone vast,' weigh heavily upon my soul 
to-night. But I have no time for more of these personal 
reflections. 

This is my last chance of addressing, at any length, a 
South African audience. It is impossible to give you any 
idea of the number of thoughts crowding into my mind. 
I cannot deal with more than a very small proportion of 
them, and only that, if you wiU kindly put up with 
the driest and concisest of summaries unadorned by any 



78 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31. 

attempt at phrase-making or rhetorical flourishes, in which 
respect I am a very poor performer in any case. It is a 
somrce of great comfort to me in leaving this comitry to 
feel that, as regards its material prosperity, the outlook is 
so much brighter than it has been for some time. The 
great industry, on which the welfare of this colony, and 
to a large extent of all South Africa, stiU mainly depends, 
is bound, humanly speaking, to attain in the present 
year the highest rate of production ever yet known. That 
circumstance will presently make its influence felt in almost 
every direction. I have not the least wish to use unduly 
optimistic language, or to say anything which might be 
twisted into what is known in the slang of the market as 
a bull point. I have never pretended to know anything 
about markets. My concern is with the fundamental 
economic factors, which, on the average and in the long 
run, but only in the long run, determine the course of 
markets. I am not thinking of next week, or of next 
month, nor am I thinking of anything ephemeral, when I 
say that it appears to me that we are inevitably approach- 
ing, though it may not come to-morrow or next day, a 
fresh period of expansion and development. 

I trust I am not mistaken in this respect, for so much 
depends upon it, so much more than mere increase of 
wealth. For such expansion and development, most 
desirable in any case, are peculiarly desirable to-day — and 
I am thinking more especially of the Transvaal — in view 
of the imminence of constitutional change. Prosperity 
would be invaluable to the new system in its first begin- 
nings. For it is not the case that what is known as self- 
government, either in its partial or its complete form, will 
of itself bring every blessing in its train. If any one beheves 
that popular elections and a party system are the panacea 
which is going to put right whatever is defective in your 
system of government, I fear he is doomed to singular 
disappointment. To be quite frank, my own opinion is 
that they will not improve your administration or your 
finances any more, if as much, as these would be improved 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 79 

in any case by influences already at work. The new 
machinery, even under the present system, is getting into 
better order every month, men are getting more used to 
their work, and, as I have said, the country generally is 
recovering from the effects of war and from other causes 
which have retarded its progress. None of these good 
tendencies will be quickened — I trust none of them may be 
retarded — by the advent of party politics. 

The reasons for the introduction of self-government are 
of a different character. The great reason is that men, 
quite naturally, prefer to manage their own affairs, or to 
think that they are managing them ; and government is 
such an imperfect business at the best that it is, as a general 
rule, more important to have a system which people like, 
than to have a possibly better system which they like less. 
Moreover, if things go wrong in a self-governing colony, 
as they will at times go wrong anywhere, the blame does 
not faU on the Imperial Government or its representatives. 
There is no excuse for hammering poor old Downing Street. 
The good relations between the Mother Country and the 
colony are not affected, and these are really of far greater 
moment than any slight loss, if there should prove to be a 
loss, in the efficiency of your local administration. 

These considerations are so plain that I am puzzled to 
understand why people should think that the Imperial 
Government needs any pushing in the matter. Obviously 
the interest of the Mother Country must be to grant self- 
government as soon and as completely as possible. Obvi- 
ously the bias of every Secretary of State for the Colonies 
must be strongly in that direction. Just imagine the relief 
to him, when he is badgered about some trumpery incident 
at Paulpotgietersfontein, to be able to say, ' This is a 
matter for the responsible government of the colony.' 
Imagine the immense advantage to Imperial interests, 
even more than to those of the colony, of being able to 
stop the mischievous game of dragging local colonial 
business, for home party purposes, about the floor of the 
House of Commons. 



80 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31, 

And what the Minister at home is bound to feel on the 
subject, his advisers out here must assuredly feel just as 
strongly. The temptation both to him and to them is to 
go too fast rather than too slowly in transferring the respon- 
sibility from their own shoulders to those of the people of 
the colony. And if, nevertheless, they move rather less 
rapidly, rather more circumspectly, than some men think 
desirable, is it not reasonable to suppose that they have 
good grounds for acting in a manner so contrary to their 
personal interest and inclination ? 

These reflections are not out of place at the present 
time. A new constitution is about to be given to this 
colony. Without pretending to know all its details, I 
know enough to say that it will be a very liberal constitu- 
tion, and a great stride, the greatest single stride in the 
whole march, in the direction of complete self-government. 
Its provisions have not been decided upon in a hurry, or 
without regard to pubhc opinion here. Ample time has 
been allowed for the expression and the careful considera- 
tion of the various views held on the subject in the colony 
itself. Of course it is not to be expected that the result 
will please everybody ; perhaps it will not entirely please 
anybody. But no one will be able to dispute the care 
and thoroughness with which the work has been done, 
or the spirit of good-wiU towards and trust in the people 
of the colony which has inspired it. That being the 
case, I say without hesitation that it is the duty of all 
good citizens to accept it heartily, and to work it with 
good-will. 

No course could be more unwise, especially for those who 
may have wished that His Majesty's Government had gone 
even further, than to try to make the new constitution a 
failure, with the view of hastening the grant of something 
else. That might be the way to win concessions from an 
unwilling donor ; it is not the way to get more out of a 
willing one. If you want a man who has your welfare at 
heart to entrust you with ten talents, the way to do it is 
to make the best use of the five talents with which he has 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 81 

already entrusted you, not to hide them away in a napkin 
and sulk because they are not ten to begin with. 

But there are higher motives than those of mere policy 
from which, as it seems to me, the people of this country 
should meet the Home Government half way, and meet 
it in a generous spirit, over this business. The present 
advisers of the Crown, and I say this no longer as an official, 
which I shall so soon cease to be, but as a private citizen, 
have shown themselves the friends of this colony. They 
have not hesitated to risk defeat in the defence of unpopular 
measures, which they consider necessary for the restora- 
tion of your prosperity. They have refused, in spite of 
jibes and sneers, to use the power which they undoubtedly 
possess, to saddle this country with a war contribution 
at a time of difficulty, and have preferred to leave the 
question to be settled by the people of the colony them- 
selves, and to trust entirely to their sense of honour. I say 
such generosity and confidence deserve recognition, and 
the best way you can recognise them is by making a success 
of the constitution, which the Imperial Government has 
framed for this colony, solely with an eye to what it con- 
siders to be the best and safest for the colony itself. 

But some men say, ' Oh ! but unless you grant complete 
autonomy at once, the Boers will have nothing to do with 
your system. They have told you so, and, unless they 
come in under it, where shall we be ? ' Well, in the first 
place, I do not for a moment believe that they will not come 
in. I decline to believe that the Boers as a body are going 
to put themselves so completely in the wrong, as they 
would do, by refusing to co-operate with their British 
fellow-citizens on terms of perfect equality, merely because 
a certain stereotyped resolution has been passed at a 
number of meetings. And even if they did, though I 
should regret it, though I should feel that the progress of 
the country had been thereby greatly retarded, I should 
still not think that the end of the world had come. If 
one section of the people absolutely refused to play the 
game, unless the rules were made exactly to suit themselves, 



82 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31, 

the natural answer would seem to be, ' Very well, then, 
sit out. We can play without you, and you can always 
join in when you are tired of sitting.' To my mind it 
is a dangerous principle, that it is not the judgment of 
impartial statesmen, who have proved that they have the 
best interests of the colony at heart, but the demands 
of a Boer junta, which are to determine what is to be 
done. 

The policy, which I would venture to commend to those 
who may be responsible for the government not of this 
colony only, but of any South African colony, is a some- 
what different one. By all means continue to treat Dutch 
and British with absolute equality. We have done for 
good and all with the system of having two classes of white 
men in this country, a privileged and an unprivileged class. 
I say, treat all equally ; indeed, try to forget as far as 
possible the differences of origin. Show the same solici- 
tude, the same zeal, for the interests of every class, of 
every neighbourhood, regardless whether this or that 
section predominates in it. But having done that, await 
with patience the gradual approximation, which equality 
of treatment and community of interests will slowly but 
surely produce. You can do nothing more to hurry it. 

Perhaps, while on this subject, I may say without offence 
that we British are apt to be rather too fussy about the 
attitude of the Dutch. It may be disappointing that, 
whatever we do, the other party, or, at least, a large number 
of them, still maintain an attitude of aloofness, if not of 
sullenness. But it is, after all, no more than might have 
been expected. How little are three years in the life of 
a people ! It is a mistake to keep girding at them for not 
showing more friendliness than they are as yet able to feel. 
But it is no less a mistake to try to coax them by offering 
something more than they are entitled to, and something 
which in our hearts we know we ought not to give up. 
Courtesy and consideration for their feelings, always. 
Compromise on questions of principle, the suppression of 
our natural and legitimate sentiments, never. There is a 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 83 

want of good sense, and, worse still, of self-respect, about 
that sort of kowtowing which makes it the worst way in 
the world to impress or to win over a strong, a shrewd, 
and an eminently self-respecting people. 

Mutual understanding, sympathy, a common ideal, can 
only be the growth of years. But, in the meantime, there 
is much to be done in working together for the material 
development of the country. That is the safest meeting- 
ground. Politics, pure and simple, may, for a long time 
to come, tend rather to maintain, than to obliterate, racial 
differences. But the extension of railways, the develop- 
ment of agriculture, irrigation, and works of public improve- 
ment generally, are all so many bonds of union. And there 
is so much to be done to make this country, favoured as 
it is in many respects by nature, a fitting home for civilised 
men, to make it yield them anything like what it is capable 
of, either in wealth or attractiveness or comfort. 

This is a text on which I have preached so often that I 
will not weary you with a fresh homily to-night. All I 
will say to you is this : If you recognise, as you all must, 
the immense extent of your requirements, be very careful to 
guard against insidious attacks upon the means of satisfy- 
ing them. In other words, do not throw away Revenue. 
It is quite likely that the next few years will be years of 
surpluses. But no sooner does Revenue raise its head than 
there is a scream for the remission of taxation. Gentle- 
men, there is a great deal too much that you urgently need 
to provide out of public money, alike in town and country, 
for you to be in a hurry to give away that money. We 
have had to work hard enough in all conscience to make 
both ends meet, and if they a little more than meet, there 
is plenty to do with the balance. 

Take, for example, this clamour for the reduction of 
railway rates. No doubt in certain instances the case for 
immediate reduction is strong. But you should think 
twice before agreeing to an aU-round reduction on imported 
articles. You will be told that this is the way to reduce 
the cost of living. I have said before, and I repeat it, 



84 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31, 

that you can do a great deal more, in the first instance, to 
reduce the cost of living by completing your railway 
system, and bringing naturally rich districts, which are at 
present wastes from lack of communication, into touch 
with the centre, than you will ever do by any reduction 
of rates that it is at present possible to make. It is not 
as if you could, under existing conditions, make a reduc- 
tion which would bring doAvn rates from being high to 
being low or even moderate. High they are, and high 
they will continue for some time to come, mainly for 
reasons over which no government has any control. What 
you can do is to throw away, say, half a million a year in 
making reductions of rates, which will all go into a few 
pockets, and which the general public will not feel at all, 
while that half million, wisely applied, would facilitate a 
great increase of supplies and expansion of business, all 
tending to induce a state of things in which a really sub- 
stantial reduction of rates will be possible later on. 

It is the same story in other cases. Among the things 
whicli will clearly have to be fought for is that share in 
the known mineral wealth of the country, which belongs, 
not to private individuals, but to the State. I am not now 
speaking of new discoveries. Every wise man must favour 
the most liberal recompense to the bona fide discoverer. 
I am speaking of the distribution of the Government's 
share in mineral wealth already discovered and delimited. 
Here again the so-called popular cause, which is really 
anti-popular, because it is dead against the interests of 
nineteen out of twenty men, women, and children in the 
country, might easily win the popular ear. Why, so runs 
the argument, not give the poor man a chance ? Why 
should the Government get all this money instead of its 
going to the people ? But what are the Government in 
this matter but the trustees of the people ? And how 
would the people get the money if it were just left to be 
scrambled for ? A few lucky individuals would get it. 
But the people as a whole would lose it. Yet it is they 
who urgently want it to supply themselves with the hundred 



1905] JOHANNESBURG U 

and one things which a civilised country ought to have, 
but which this country has not got. 

This subject of development is one about which I could 
run on for hours. I shall live in the memories of men in 
this country, if I live at all, in connection with the struggle 
to keep it within the limits of the British Empire. And 
certainly I engaged in that struggle with all my might, 
being, from head to foot, one mass of glowing conviction of 
the rightness of our cause. But, however inevitable, how- 
ever just, a destructive conflict of that kind is a sad busi- 
ness to look back upon. What I should prefer to be remem- 
bered by is the tremendous effort subsequent to the war, 
not only to repair its ravages, but to restart these colonies 
on a higher plane of civilisation than they had ever pre- 
viously attained. To that task I have devoted myself 
with at least equal energy, and certainly with far more 
sympathy with my work. 

And in that connection I should like to say one final 
word to those — perhaps they are not very many — who 
are good enough to place confidence in me ; I do not mean 
merely confidence in my good intentions, or in the main 
drift of my policy, but in the general soundness of my 
judgment. To them I would say : ' If you believe in 
me, defend my works when I am gone. Defend, more 
especially, those which are more especially mine. I care 
for that much more than I do for eulogy, or, indeed, for 
any personal reward.' 

Many of the things which I have been instrumental in 
starting since the war must have been started equally by 
any man in my position. I may have laid the founda- 
tions more or less well, pushed on the building more or less 
energetically. But any other man would have had to do 
these things, and once done, being both necessary and 
fashioned after a common pattern, they are now generally 
accepted and perfectly safe from subsequent attack. But 
there are other enterprises which owe their origin mainly 
to my personal initiative and insistence. And these are 
all more or less in danger. They were necessarily unpopular 



86 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar 31, 

to begin with, just because they were original. As people 
always begin by disliking a new fashion, so do they always 
begin by disliking new institutions, or a new policy, some- 
thing they are not used to, something for which there is no 
precedent. As has been truly said, there is no pain like 
the pain of a new idea. And being thus unpopular to 
begin with, they have not had time enough to wear down 
unpopularity by their fruits, because they are slow-growing. 
They are all under the curse of that congenital vice of 
their author, an incurable tendency to look far ahead. 

Take, for instance, the policy of Land Settlement. It is, 
I have always contended, and still contend, a vital and 
essential part of our constructive work. It was not adopted, 
as some critics have said, with a view of ousting the old 
country population or out-numbering them — I never had 
such a crazy idea — but rather of quickening that popula- 
tion with a new leaven, of strengthening the progressive 
element among the farmers, which greatly needs strengthen- 
ing, and of forming a link between town and country and 
between British and Dutch. And aU this the much- 
abused experiment is actually doing to-day, though cer- 
tainly not to the extent which I should wish. But that is 
due to the inherent difficulty of the enterprise (and I never 
had any illusion that it was easy), to the fact that we were 
hustled into starting it before we were ready, and to a 
rather exceptional amount of bad luck in the early stages. 
But aU that is over now. The work is progressing in both 
the new colonies, slowly, unsensationally, but in a very 
sound fashion. The only thing needed is just to go on 
with it, and, instead of perpetually raking up, magnifying, 
and gloating over the mistakes of the first beginnings, to 
make up as much leeway as possible now that those mistakes 
have been rectified. But the experiment has plenty of 
enemies, and, unless I can enlist for it some active friends, 
I foresee that it will have a troubled future. 

Or take, again, afforestation. That is another of Milner's 
fads. I am as sure as I stand here that Nature intended 
wide tracts of South Africa to be forest country. If you 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 87 

were to spend £100,000 a year in the two colonies for the 
next thirty or forty years in planting forests, you would 
find yourselves, at the end of that time, in possession of 
an undreamed of source of wealth, which would come in 
very handy as your mines were exhausted, especially as, 
unlike the mines, it would itself be inexhaustible. Yet 
last year the Legislative Council of the Transvaal cut down 
the paltry vote which was proposed for afforestation, and 
it is, humanly speaking, certain that, unless people can 
be awakened to their vital permanent interests, the first 
responsible Ministry which has a difficulty in squaring the 
Budget will starve the whole thing to death. And a 
similar danger threatens our arrangements for the scientific 
promotion of agriculture, using that word to cover all 
production from the land, whether stock or crops, and the 
scientific study of irrigation. The work of experts in both 
these branches will take years to make itself fully felt. 
It is much of it negative work, in checking disease, in pre- 
venting the waste arising from iU-digested schemes, in 
eliminating quackery. The positive results will be slow, 
and yet, if the policy is persisted in, they will be enormous. 
But without more public support, I will not answer for 
its fate at the hands of politicians. 

Last, but not least, there is the amalgamation of the 
railways of the two colonies, and that object of so much 
ill-considered criticism, the Inter-Colonial Council. I have 
actually seen it described as a cloak for extravagance. 
Yet it is absolutely demonstrable that it has contributed 
greatly to both efficiency and economy in the services 
under its control. I venture to assert that those services 
have been better and more closely looked after by a body 
specially constituted for that purpose than they would 
have been if they had been left to take their chance in the 
miscellaneous mass of work with which the two legisla- 
tures are already fully, and more than fully, occupied. 

It is rather the fashion to decry the South African Con- 
stabulary, especially among people who know least about 
it. In the country districts, where the work of the con- 



88 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31. 

stabulary lies, I am in the habit of hearing a very different 
tale. The truth, I believe, is that the South African Con- 
stabulary, which, like anything else, did not spring into 
life in a state of complete perfection, has now become one 
of the most efficient forces of its kind in the British Empire, 
and one which discharges without fuss an immense amount 
of useful work. And, as a defensive force, it suffers from 
its own efficiency. So complete has been its success in 
preventing trouble that people, who do not know what I 
know, have quite forgotten the ever-present sources of 
possible trouble in a country peopled as this is. 

But after all the most important, and probably the most 
permanent, of the duties of the Council is the control of 
the railways, and in that respect its record is a brilliant 
one. It was not the fault of the Council that the railways 
were in such a terrible state after the war, but it is directly 
due to the influence of the Council and to the hard work 
of the Railway Committee, which is its organ, that the 
efficiency of the railways has been restored, their equip- 
ment immensely augmented, the accounts reformed, and 
their revenue greatly increased by the reduction of working 
expenditure. If the Council were to come to an end 
to-morrow it would have fully justified its existence. 

But it will not come to an end yet awhile, for it is as 
important as ever that the railways of the two colonies 
should be worked as one system, with an eye to their 
efficiency as a whole, and to the greatest good of the greatest 
number on both sides of the Vaal, not as two competitive 
systems, developed wastefuUy, because independently, 
antagonistically, and for ever fighting with one another 
over division of traffic and division of rates. We are never, 
I hope, going backward to separate ownership of the rail- 
ways of the two colonies. Indeed, I am comforted to 
think that it is a practical impossibility. Much rather 
should our eyes be turned in the exactly opposite direc- 
tion, to the amalgamation, which might even precede 
political union, of all the railways of South Africa, and to 
placing them under a permanent Commission, representa- 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 89 

tive of the several states, but outside political influences, 
which would work them on business lines, and put an end 
to the present chaos of rates and the clash of interests 
between one railway system and another. That, I am 
convinced, would be the greatest practical boon to the 
whole sub-continent. When that day comes the Inter- 
Colonial Council will have done its work. 

And now, at the risk of wearying you to death, there are 
just two more subjects which I must refer to, subjects both 
of the deepest importance, but of a quite impersonal 
character. The first of these is the Native Question, or, 
rather, I should say, the Colour Question. You know I 
am, in the opinion ojf the vast majority of men in this room, 
a heretic about that, and I am an impenitent heretic. I 
believe as strongly as ever that we got off the right lines 
when we threw over Mr. Rhodes's principle of ' equal 
rights for every civilised man.' At the same time, I am 
prepared to rely, for a return to what I believe to be the 
true path, upon a gradual change in opinion in this country 
itself. It is a South African question, and nothing could 
be worse in principle or more unfortunate in its results, 
than to attempt to influence the solution of it, even in a 
right direction, by external pressure. 

I hate referring to a question of this magnitude in a 
sentence or two at the end of a long speech. It is so very 
unworthy a treatment of it. But the alternative was 
worse, namely, that I should appear to forget its import- 
ance, which must ever be present to us, or to be afraid to 
stick to an unpopular opinion. 

And here let me say that, whatever may be my anxieties 
about the Native Question, I feel that a great contribution 
has been made to a better understanding of it by the Report 
and evidence of the Native Affairs Commission. Their 
value will be more and more appreciated as time goes on. 
There are far too many people who think that they can 
dispose of the Native Question by a few slap-dash phrases, 
or by a contemptuous reference to that long extinct bogey, 
Exeter Hall. To these I would say, read that Report and 



90 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 31, 

that evidence, and you will see how much more compli- 
cated the whole subject is than you imagine, how much 
more many-sided and, at the same time, how much less 
uniformly dark. Above all you may learn that the essence 
of wisdom in dealing with it is discrimination — not to 
throw all coloured people, from the highest to the lowest, 
into one indiscriminate heap, but to study closely the 
differences of race, of circumstances, of degrees of civilisa- 
tion, and to adapt your policy intelligently and sympa- 
thetically to the several requirements of each. 

And with that, gentlemen, I have arrived at the abso- 
lutely last point of my appalling list. And this I care most 
about of all, because it is over all and embracing all. What 
I pray for hardest is that those in South Africa with whom 
my words may carry weight should remain faithful, faithful 
above all in times of reaction, to the great idea of Imperial 
unity. The goal of all our hopes, the solution of all our 
difficulties, is there. Shall we ever see the fulfilment of 
that idea ? Whether we do or not, whether we succeed 
or fail, I for one shall always be steadfast in that faith, 
though I should prefer to work quietly and in the back- 
ground, in the formation of opinion, rather than in the 
exercise of power. 

This question, as I see it — the future of the British 
Empire — is a race, a close race, between the numerous 
influences so manifestly making for disruption, and the 
growth of a great, but still very imperfectly realised, political 
conception. Shall we ever get ourselves understood in 
time ? The word Empire, the word Imperial, are, in some 
respects, unfortunate. They suggest domination, ascend- 
ancy, the rule of a superior state over vassal states. But 
as they are the only words available, aU we can do is to 
make the best of them, and to raise them in the scale of 
language by a new significance. When we, who call our- 
selves Imperialists, talk of the British Empire, we think 
of a group of states, independent of one another in their 
local affairs, but bound together for the defence of their 
common interests, and the development of a common 



1905] JOHANNESBURG 91 

civilisation, and so bound, not in an alliance — for alliances 
can be made and unmade, and are never more than 
nominally lasting, — ^but in a permanent organic union. 
Of such a union, we fully admit, the dominions of our 
sovereign, as they exist to-day, are only the raw material. 
Our ideal is still distant, but we are firmly convinced that 
it is not visionary nor unattainable. 

And see how such a consummation would solve, and, 
indeed, can alone solve, the most difficult and most per- 
sistent of the problems of South Africa, how it would unite 
its white races as nothing else can. The Dutch can never 
own a perfect allegiance merely to Great Britain. The 
British can never, without moral injury, accept allegiance 
to any body-politic which excludes their motherland. 
But British and Dutch alike could, without loss of dignity, 
without any sacrifice of their several traditions, unite in 
loyal devotion to an Empire-State, in which Great Britain 
and South Africa would be partners, and could work 
cordially together for the good of South Africa as a member 
of that greater whole. And so you see the true Imperialist 
is also the best South African. The road is long, the 
obstacles are many. The goal may not be reached in my 
lifetime, perhaps not in that of the youngest man in this 
room. You cannot hasten the slow growth of a great idea 
of that kind by any forcing process. But you can keep it 
steadily in view, lose no opportunity of working for it, 
resist, like grim death, any policy which draws you away 
from it. I know that to be faithful in this service requires 
the rarest of combinations, that of ceaseless effort with 
infinite patience. But then think of the greatness of the 
reward — ^the high privilege of having in any way contri- 
buted to the fulfilment of one of the noblest conceptions 
which have ever dawned on the political imagination of 
mankind. 



92 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [feb. 26, 

LONDON, QUEEN'S HALL, Langham Place.— 
Januahy 9, 1906 

Persecution of the Jews in Russia 

[The following passage is taken from a speech delivered at a meeting 
' representative of every religious creed and political complexion,' caUed 
to protest against the ill-treatment of the Jews in Russia] : — 

Members of all parties and creeds in England are agreed 
on the merits of this question. The only objection which 
could be urged to the resolution is, that in the fellowship 
of European nations it is not desirable for the people of 
one country to give advice to the people of another about 
their internal affairs. It may be said that we in England 
are a little prone to preach to our neighbours : we have 
sometimes done so in cases where our own record was none 
too clean. Certainly we ought to be sure of our ground 
and our facts, and that our own action, in all similar circum- 
stances, has been such as to give our protest the greatest 
possible moral weight. All these conditions I think exist 
in an exceptional degree in the present case. There can 
be no doubt that the recurring outbursts of savagery against 
the unfortunate Jews of Russia constitute an enormous 
scandal against which all civilisation, and especially all 
Christian peoples, have a right to raise their voices, because 
scandals disgrace and injure all alike. These outrages are 
only the acute phases of a chronic malady. The denial 
to the Jews in Russia of the ordinary rights of citizenship, 
the policy which treats them at all times as an inferior 
race, and compels them, even when they have wholly 
different desires, to regard the State as a tyrant and an 
oppressor, leads to a state of things which no well-ordered 
and well-governed country can contemplate with equanimity, 
nor from which it can hope for any success in its adminis- 
tration. Great Britain treats the Jews in the right spirit, 
as men and as future citizens. They are so treated in the 
South African colonies, and the result is that the Jewish 
population is second to none under the British flag in its 
zeal, its patriotism, and its practical contribution to the 
general well-being of the community. 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 93 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— February 26, 1906 

The Tratisvaal and Orange River Colonies 

[In January 1906 the Unionist Government had been replaced by a 
Liberal Government under Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, which had an 
immense majority in the House of Commons. As this result was due in 
a great measure to popular misapprehensions, skiKully fostered, as to the 
effect of the Chinese Labour Ordinance in the Transvaal, it was generally 
supposed that the Government would reverse the South African policy 
of their predecessors. This impression, which proved to be correct, was 
presently confirmed by a paragraph in the King's Speech announcing the 
immediate grant of full responsible government to the Orange River 
Colony. At the same time it became known that a similar measure was 
contemplated for the Transvaal, and that the so-called Lyttelton Con- 
stitution, which had been introduced by the Unionist Government as a 
transitional system paving the way to complete self-government, was to 
be at once swept away. 

In these circumstances — see Hansard — ^Lord Milner ' rose to call 
attention to the situation in South Africa, and to ask the Secretary of 
State for the Colonies whether he could give the House any information 
as to the form of the proposed Constitutions of the Transvaal and the 
Orange Free State.'] 

My Lords, I feel that I stand in special need of that 
indulgence which your Lordships are always ready to 
accord to one who addresses you for the first time. I can 
honestly say that it is only with the greatest reluctance 
and from a strong sense of public duty that I am bringing 
up this matter at all to-day. 

At first sight the moment may not appear opportune. 
The noble Earl the Secretary of State may say : ' We 
have told you that we are giving this matter our most 
careful consideration, and that we find it a very difficult 
and complicated one. The Prime Minister stated only 
last Monday that he was woefully in want of information ; 
the noble Marquess the Leader of this House stated on 
the same day that we were obliged to make further inquiry 
on a variety of subjects : under these circumstances, how 
can you expect us, after only a week, to give you full par- 
ticulars ? ' I admit the force of that, and I may say that. 



94 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [feb. 26, 

the last thing I wish to do in this matter is to hurry the 
noble Earl or the Government. The more complete their 
knowledge the better. But without going into every detail 
I think the noble Earl may be glad of an opportunity of 
making some statement on the general trend of the Govern- 
ment's policy, especially on points which have not attracted 
so much attention as Chinese labour. 

I see it assumed in some quarters friendly to the Govern- 
ment, that their guiding principle is simply to reverse 
everything done by their predecessors. If that is the case, 
I think that the country, which has certainly never given 
its approval to such a proceeding, is entitled to know what 
is contemplated before it is too late. I hardly think myself 
that that can be their intention. Still, there are certain 
disquieting symptoms — witness the whoop of triumph with 
which the Speech from the Throne and the commentaries 
of Ministers upon it have been received by the whole anti- 
British Press of South Africa, and by the agitators who 
since the conclusion of peace have never ceased to discredit 
and obstruct all the efforts of His Majesty's servants in 
that country, even when they were of the most direct 
benefit to the mass of the Boer people. 

That insidious and absolutely consistent enemy of this 
country, 0ns Land, breaks into a paean because the Lyttelton- 
Milner regime is as ' dead as a door nail.' 0ns Land is 
really almost as happy, and, of course, more demonstra- 
tive than on the occasion of our military disasters at the 
beginning of the war. I say these are disquieting symptoms. 
I hope the noble Earl will be able to dispel our alarm — the 
alarm of those who did not sympathise with the enemy 
during the war, and do not want to see all the hard and 
costly work accompHshed since its conclusion mutilated 
or undone. 

I should like to point out to your Lordships some of the 
principal points with respect to which we are in suspense, 
and very anxious suspense. First of all, there was a 
passage in His Majesty's Speech, which seems to me to 
have received much less attention than it deserved. I 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 95 

refer to the brief paragraph which announced the immediate 
grant of full responsible government to the Orange River 
Colony. The noble Marquess the Leader of this House 
seemed to treat that as a matter of course. He even said 
that he had never been quite able to understand why the 
late Government did not deal with the Orange River Colony 
in the same way as with the Transvaal. I cannot say what 
reasons weighed with the late Government ; but to me it 
seems tolerably obvious that, if you are tempted to make 
the same risky experiment in two places, you naturally 
try it first in the place where the risk is less, and not in that 
where it is immeasurably greater. 

I trust the Government are under no illusions as to the 
extent of the risk in the Orange River Colony. What, 
after all, do we mean when we talk of giving responsible 
government to a colony ? It means giving it, virtually, 
complete independence under the Crown. There remains, 
no doubt, the Governor's veto on legislation, a veto very 
rarely exercised, very invidious in its exercise, but still, 
as far as it goes, a certain power ; but in executive matters 
all authority lies in the hands of the Colonial Ministry. 
I think it was the late Lord Salisbury who once 
pithily described the situation by saying that the only 
bond between the Mother Country and a colony with 
responsible government was the bond of affection. But 
what if that, the only bond, is lacking ? And in this case 
how can any reasonable man expect it already to exist ? 

Here is a colony, three-quarters of whose inhabitants 
have been at war with you up to less than four years ago, 
a war that was fought with the utmost determination to 
the bitter end. It is true that they have been treated 
since then with a generosity which I believe has no parallel 
in history, that everything has been done, both to restore 
their material prosperity and to spare their susceptibilities, 
and that this treatment has not been without its effect. 
I believe that my friend,^ the Lieutenant-Governor of that 
colony, is probably to-day one of the most popular men 

^ Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams. 



96 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [feb. 26, 

within its borders, with Boers quite as much as with Britons. 
But though all that is very satisfactory as far as it goes, 
it does not amount to anything that by the wildest stretch 
of imagination could be called affection for British insti- 
tutions, or the British Empire. 

The process of reconciling the Boers to the new political 
conditions has been quite as rapid as any rational being 
could expect. No doubt, however, it would have been 
even more rapid, and the prospect to-day would be far 
brighter, but for one most regrettable circumstance. I 
refer to the fact that almost every man of influence among 
them — their leaders in the war, to whom they cling with 
a loyalty which does them honour, the ministers of their 
Church, whose influence over them is notorious, and the 
leading writers in the Dutch Press — have from the very 
outset devoted themselves to thwarting the policy of recon- 
ciliation and to keeping alive by every means in their 
power the bitterest memories of the war. There have no 
doubt been some honourable exceptions, but in the great 
majority of cases this has been the attitude adopted by 
the leaders of the Boers in both the late Republics. Only 
last month ex-President Steyn, who was merely taking a 
line which has been taken over and over again by other 
leaders, made a speech to a Boer audience at Dewetsdorp, 
and exhorted the mothers who had ' suffered so much ' 
in the concentration camps to remember those sufferings, 
and to see that their children were not unmindful of the 
story. 

That is bad enough ; but there are still worse tactics to 
which the Boer leaders continually resort, I refer to the 
policy of trying to stir up the more jgnorant and illiterate 
portion of the Boer people, and to excite and maintain 
their hatred of the British regime by the constant assertion, 
the mendacious assertion, that Great Britain has not 
fulfilled the obligations which she undertook under the 
Terms of Surrender. How, in the face of the plain letter of 
that document, out of which that accusation has over and 
over again been refuted, any human being can still go on 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 97 

reiterating it, absolutely passes my comprehension. But 
any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and any fiction, 
however malicious, however ridiculous, is good enough for 
these gentlemen, if they can only thereby foster animosity 
to Great Britain. 

What is going to happen under responsible government ? 
It is more than probable — it is, humanly speaking, certain 
— ^that the persons to whom I have referred will form a 
large majority, if not almost the whole, of that first elected 
Parliament of the Orange River Colony to which, from the 
first hour of its existence, the whole legislative and execu- 
tive power in that colony is to be entrusted. I do not 
suggest that they will begin by doing anything sensational. 
All forms will be duly observed ; as why should they not 
be ? It will be perfectly possible for them, with the most 
complete constitutional propriety, little by little to reverse 
all that has been done, and gradually to get rid of 
the British officials, the British teachers, the bulk of the 
British settlers, and any offensive British taint which may 
cling to the Statute-book or the administration. 

I can quite understand that from the point of view of 
what are known as the pro-Boers such a result is eminently 
desirable. They thought the war was a crime, the annexa- 
tion a blunder, and they think to-day that the sooner you 
can get back to the old state of things the better. I say I 
quite understand that view, though I do not suppose that 
it is shared by His Majesty's Ministers, or, at any rate, by 
aU of them. What I cannot understand is how any human 
being, not being a pro-Boer, can regard with equanimity 
the prospect that the very hand which drafted the ulti- 
matum of October 1899, may within a year be drafting 
' Ministers' Minutes ' for submission to a British governor 
who will have virtually no option but to obey them. 

What will be the contents of these Minutes, I wonder ? 
As time goes on it may be a proposal for dispensing with 
English as an official language, or a proposal for the distri- 
bution to every country farmer of a military rifle and so 
many hundred cartridges, in view of threatened danger from 

G 



98 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [feb. 26. 

the Basutos. I think I can see the governor just hesitating 
a httle to put his hand to such a document. In that case, 
I think I can hear the instant low growl of menace from 
Press and platform and pulpit, the hints of the necessity 
of his recall, and the answering scream from the pro-Boer 
Press of Britain against the ruthless satrap, ignorant of 
constitutional usage, and wholly misunderstanding his own 
position, who dared to trample upon the rights of a free 
people. 

I may be told, I know I shall be told, that such notions 
are the wild imaginings of a disordered brain, that these 
are theoretical possibilities, having no relation to fact or 
probability. They are not imaginings. They are just 
reminiscences. I know what it is to be governor of a 
self-governing colony, with the disaffected element in the 
ascendant. I was bitterly attacked for not being suffi- 
ciently submissive under the circumstances. Yet even 
with the least submissive governor, the position is so weak 
that strange things happen. It was under responsible 
government, and in the normal working of responsible 
government, that 1,000,000 cartridges were passed through 
Cape Colony on the eve of the war, to arm the people 
who were just going to attack us, and that some necessary 
cannon were stopped from being sent to a defenceless 
border town, which directly afterwards was besieged, and 
which, from want of these cannon, was nearly taken. 

But quite apart from these questions of very real but 
more remote interest, I do want most earnestly to ask His 
Majesty's Government this most immediate, urgent, prac- 
tical question. What are you going to do in the Orange 
River Colony about the new British settlers upon the land 
— ^those, I mean, who are Government tenants — about 
the British teachers in Government schools, about the 
constabulary, about the officials, high or low, but especially 
the humbler of them, who have served you with such devo- 
tion during these last arduous years ? Are you just going 
to hand them over like that without any further concern 
as to what may happen to them, with their legal rights, 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 99 

no doubt, such as they may be, but with no safeguards 
against hostile administrative action ? 

Remember, this is no case of gradual constitutional 
development. It is the case of a sudden revolution. Loyalty 
to the old system will be a black mark against a man under 
the new. The Government must surely feel that, if it is 
a question between the grant of full responsible govern- 
ment and this country keeping faith, they should choose 
the latter. In that case they will find that they have, 
after all, got to qualify their grant of responsible govern- 
ment, and to proceed in a more gradual and circumspect 
manner than the words of His Majesty's Speech seem to 
imply. It is perfectly possible to do this, I believe it is 
absolutely more practical than the fer saltum method. 
And, again, if they are wise and if they really, as the 
Prime Minister says, are looking forward to federation, 
they would do well to reserve certain powers in both the 
new colonies, affecting matters which are of more than local 
importance, until they are in a position to hand them over 
to a Federal Government. 

And now, returning to the general line of my argument, 
let me say that, as far as the attitude of the Boer leaders is 
concerned, there is absolutely no difference between the 
Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, But, in the case 
of the Transvaal, the danger arising from that attitude is 
less considerable. Unless the Transvaal is ruined and 
depopulated by blows levelled at its principal industry, 
or unless the distribution of political power in the colony 
is absolutely unfair, the British element, whether or not 
it obtains a majority in the Legislature, will in any case 
command so strong a minority that it should be able to 
protect itself and should, if it is not hopelessly alienated 
by our attitude towards it, supply to a great extent that 
bond of affection which, according to the great statesman 
I have already quoted, was the only bond which held self- 
governing colonies to the mother country. Surely, under 
these circumstances, it is not surprising that in the work 
of constitutional development the late Government should 



100 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [fee. 26. 

have given priority to the case of the Transvaal, and should 
have contemplated the two colonies proceeding in echelon, 
if I may use the expression, to the goal of ultimate com- 
plete self-government, which was the same for both. 

I know it may be said that the fears I have expressed about 
the Orange River Colony leave no hope of it ever being 
in a satisfactory condition under responsible government, 
and that therefore, as we are bound sooner or later to give it 
responsible government, why not give it now 1 why irritate 
them by delay ? My Lords, I would like to join issue in 
the most direct manner with those who take up this posi- 
tion. In the first place, let me say that I am an out-and- 
out advocate of ultimate complete self-government, even 
in the Orange River Colony. If I had not been, I could 
never have put my hand to the Terms of Surrender, in which 
that prospect was referred to. But I was satisfied that we 
were not holding out the hope of anything which we were 
not certain to grant in any case, and that complete self- 
government on the basis of the political equality of all 
white men was the only possible, the only desirable, goal of 
the work of political reconstruction in both colonies. 

To that goal, every line of our policy, so far as I was 
responsible for it, has converged. Nor have I ever doubted 
that, though the road might be long, though the process 
might be slow, and must, if it was to stand the best chance 
of success, be gradual, we should with patience and cir- 
cumspection be able ultimately to arrive at a thoroughly 
satisfactory result. Every year that passed the bitter 
memories of the war would grow a little more distant, and 
the trick of playing upon them less effective. Every year 
the obvious solicitude of the Government for the wel- 
fare of the people, the multiplication of good schools, the 
improvement of agriculture, the spread of railways, the 
hundred and one works of material advancement, would 
win us friends, or diminish the hostility of enemies. Every 
year the new population would become more firmly rooted 
on the soil, and get on to better terms with the older 
inhabitants. Let me be quite frank and say that, even in 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 101 

the most favourable circumstances, even if sufficient time 
had been granted for all these influences to produce their 
inevitable effect, we might have found, when we came to 
granting complete self-government to the Orange River 
Colony, that it was still a source of some solicitude to 
Imperial statesmen. But I felt that, if things went well 
elsewhere, it would not be a source of danger. 

And here I come to the kernel of the whole business. 
Whether responsible government in the Orange River Colony 
can, or cannot, be introduced with safety, depends on the 
general political situation throughout South Africa. Natal 
and Rhodesia are all right in any case. But in the Cape 
Colony, when the rebels are restored to the register, as they 
soon must be, the Bond will no doubt once more assert 
its domination ; and with the Cape Colony under Bond 
domination, I say that it is a very risky business to give 
complete self-government to the Orange River Colony, 
unless we can absolutely rely, to restore the balance, upon 
a prosperous and loyal Transvaal. That was, and is, the 
key of the whole South African situation. 

If I may digress for a moment, I should like to say that 
people in England have never fully appreciated — and that 
is one of the weakest points in the whole position — how 
great, how decisive, that prosperity and loyalty of the 
Transvaal in favourable circumstances might be ; how 
important a factor in the peaceful federation of South 
Africa and the whole future of the Empire. Just now the 
Transvaal, indeed all South Africa, is under a cloud. It 
has cost us great sacrifices. The compensations which we 
expected, and reasonably expected, have not come, and 
people rush to the conclusion that they will never come. 
The local difficulties of the Transvaal — though this is the 
fault of our party system and not of the colony — are a 
curse to the political life of this country. Men are sick of 
the whole affair, and, as is always the case, under such 
circumstances, the croakers are magnifying every trouble, 
and spreading broadcast the most gloomy anticipations. 

Well, I am old enough to have lived through all this 



102 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [fee. 26, 

before. I remember when year after year this same gloom, 
these same jeremiads, were aU concentrated on our policy 
in Egypt. That was before we had had time to make Egypt 
a magnificent success. And the analogy of Egypt applies 
also in other respects. All this calumny with which the 
air is thick, all this raving about mammon and ' Randlords,' 
and the war having been a war for gold, and the liberties 
of a people having been trampled underfoot to satisfy 
the greed of ruthless capitalists — substitute ' bondholders ' 
for * Randlords,' and you have an almost literal re- 
petition of the hysterics of the early eighties. To-day 
the detractors have altered their tune about Egypt, and 
are even extolling our work there — which, if they had had 
their way, would never have been done — in order to dis- 
credit by contrast our work in South Africa, which is still 
passing through the years of stress and strain. I do not 
suggest, for a moment, that the circumstances of the two 
countries are in any way similar. But the moral — the 
moral of patience, of tenacity, of turning a deaf ear to the 
consistent vilifiers of the policy of their country, and of 
the honour of its statesmen — is the same. 

My Lords, as I have said, if you aim at political stability 
in South Africa, you need a prosperous and loyal Transvaal. 
The right plan in my opinion was to go gently until you 
had built it up. A cautious line in constitutional develop- 
ment, and full steam ahead in the material recuperation 
of the country — that was the true policy in both the new- 
colonies — always with a view to ultimate complete self- 
government. But as you have decided against the gradual 
method, as you are going not only to plunge into full self- 
government at once in the Transvaal, but to go at an 
equally break-neck pace in the Orange River Colony, then 
it is of vital and urgent importance — it may make the 
whole difference between our ultimately retaining or losing 
South Africa — that you do nothing to hamper the growth 
of the Transvaal, or to alienate the affections of its people. 

What is the outlook in that respect to-day ? My Lords, 
I say it with the deepest regret, the outlook is far worse, 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 103 

in my humble opinion, than it was three months ago. 
Six months ago, three months ago, it looked as if we were 
through our worst troubles in the Transvaal. The economic 
crisis was over. Trade returns, railway returns, revenue 
— every index of the general economic condition of the 
country was showing very satisfactory results. The 
amount paid by the mines in wages and salaries was 
£1,871,000 more in 1904-5 — the first Chinese year — than 
in 1903-4. The amount paid by them for stores was 
£821,000 more. The expenditure of this large sum by its 
immediate recipients was giving a powerful impetus to 
every industry in the country, and to agriculture. The 
number of whites in profitable employment had enormously 
increased. The surplus population was almost absorbed, 
and there would soon have been a demand for further 
immigration. The reviving prosperity of industry and of 
agriculture was raising the spirits of the people — and, 
believe me, there is nothing like common prosperity to 
soften the asperities of racial rivalry. 

Moreover, the improvement radiating from the Transvaal 
was beginning to make itself felt, as sooner or later it was 
bound to make itself felt, in every part of South Africa ; 
and, according to the latest returns, Cape Colony and Natal, 
which had suffered so deeply in consequence of the depres- 
sion in the central state, were showing unmistakable signs 
of revival. As compared with that, what is the position 
to-day ? What is the position of the great industry of 
the Transvaal, the great industry of South Africa, as it 
has been left by the acts and the declarations of His 
Majesty's Government ? I venture to say it is a posi- 
tion of the most complete, the most harassing, the most 
paralysing uncertainty. No business could possibly 
flourish under such conditions ; and we have just got to 
face the fact that the economic development of the Trans- 
vaal is definitely stopped. The best we can hope is that 
things will not go back. There is no chance of their going 
forward until the menace at present hanging over the 
colony is removed. 



104 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [feb. 26, 

My Lords, if I were to attempt to enter adequately into 
the discussion of Chinese labour, either on its economic 
or on its ethical side, I should keep you here till midnight. 
Moreover, we have now reached a stage in this controversy, 
which, sooner or later, is reached in every controversy, 
when no one can any longer hope to make converts. But, 
if this is not the time for argument, it is a time for a pro- 
fession of faith. The tide of prejudice is running strongly 
against this system. That is the more reason why those 
who believe in it should speak out boldly. I know that I 
bear a large share of the responsibility for the introduc- 
tion of Chinese labour. I am not going to apologise for 
it. I am firmly convinced I was right. 

I did not go into this grave business lightly. When it 
was first suggested, when the question was first raised, I 
was as much opposed to it as all the rest of the white popu- 
lation of the Transvaal, except a mere handful of mine- 
owners and mine experts, a small minority even of their 
own class. By what subtle alchemy, by what insidious 
and subterranean process does any one suppose that I, 
together with thousands of our fellow-countrymen out 
there — men quite as independent, as honest, as moral, as 
religious, as the average middle class and upper working 
class of Great Britain, to which they belong — that I and 
they were converted to take a different view ? We were 
converted by the facts ; and if I was converted a little 
sooner than some of the rest, it was only because I had 
earlier and fuller access to the facts, and perhaps more 
time exhaustively to study them. 

But let me add that, however great appeared to me its 
economic necessity, as revealed by the facts, I should never 
have felt myself justified in recommending the system, if 
I had thought it morally wrong. I disliked the idea of it, 
because I foresaw that it would give us an enormous amount 
of trouble, though not precisely the trouble that has arisen, 
that it would be difficult to recruit the coolies, to bring 
them over, to arrange for them on arrival ; difficult to 
house them, difficult, on the one hand, to prevent their 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 105 

giving trouble, and, on the other, to protect them against 
rough usage and against imposition, while the population 
would have to be protected against outrage. I fully recog- 
nised the gravity of all this. These were drawbacks, 
inconveniences, grave objections, no doubt, but such as 
with hard work and good administration could all be over- 
come, as I believe they have been overcome, although, no 
doubt, some mistakes were made and some very regrettable 
things happened in the process. These difficulties could 
not in my judgment be allowed to weigh against the 
supreme need of the country, not of the mines alone, not 
of the Transvaal alone, but of every industry, of every 
portion of South Africa — ^the need of labour. It would 
have been otherwise if there had been something in the 
system which appeared to me inherently and incurably 
wrong. But that I was — and, after reading pages and 
pages of declamation and of hair-splitting I still am — 
totally unable to see. 

On the ethical side, the charge against the system has 
now been reduced to this, that if you admit the Chinese 
coolies into the Transvaal at all, you are morally bound to 
admit them for all time and for all purposes. It seems to 
me that this is an entirely new moral law invented for the 
particular occasion. These men are aliens. They have 
no rights in the country by birth or citizenship. No one 
disputes that the Transvaal would have a right to exclude 
them or any other aliens. What is contended is, that it 
has no right to admit aliens for a limited time and a par- 
ticular object. But it is surely less interference with the 
freedom of the Chinaman, to admit him for a certain time 
and for a certain purpose, than to exclude him altogether. 
The people of the Transvaal want the Chinese for one 
purpose only. The Chinese are delighted to come, fully 
understanding that it is for that purpose only. The purpose 
itself is a good one. It is labour, arduous and disagreeable 
labour no doubt, but stiU straightforward, honest labour. 
I say, under these circumstances, it is tyrannous, yes, 
tyrannous on the part of the people of this country, to 



106 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [fee. 26, 

prevent the Transvaal people and the Chinese from enter- 
ing into this arrangement between themselves, and I say 
that tyranny is immoral. 

It has been said, and I sympathise with the remark 
and with the spirit that animates it, that there is no honest 
work which British workmen cannot do, and that they 
could do the work for which the Chinese are brought into 
the Transvaal, at a certain wage. But the point is, that 
the enterprise cannot afford the wage which British work- 
men would require, and rightly require. The British 
workman will not, and ought not, to accept the only wage 
which for that particular work the mines can afford to pay. 
It would mean to him degradation. But for the Chinaman, 
with his different standard of living, this same wage is 
not degradation, but advancement. And in doing this 
work which he can do without degradation, though the 
British workman could not, he is at the same time creating 
work of a different kind, which the British workman can 
do with advantage. The arrangement is the most reason- 
able, I might almost say the most providential, which can 
be imagined ; and it seems to me unreasonable, harsh, 
and tyrannous, both to the Chinaman and to the Briton, 
to forbid it. 

So much about the prospect on its economic side. Now, 
how about the political ? Let me say at once that, even 
from the political point of view, I attach far more import- 
ance to the general prosperity of the Transvaal, to the 
development of its industry and its agriculture, to making 
it a great country, the home of thousands of working British 
people, carrying on an ever-increasing trade with their 
fellow-workers over here — I say I attach more importance 
to that than to this or that franchise, this or that distribu- 
tion of seats, always provided you do nothing ludicrously 
unfair. I thought that in both these respects what is 
known as the Lyttelton Constitution was a very fair one. 
I am sorry it has been upset. But I do not say that some 
other arrangement might not be devised, which could be 
equally fair, though I should not so describe any plan which 



i9o6] TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE R. COLONIES 107 

did not give the young unmarried or newly-married residents, 
who form so large and important an element in the Trans- 
vaal population, and bear so large a part of the burden of 
taxation, their full share of political power. I should not 
so describe any plan which involved the total swamping 
of the small towns. And, fortunately, abstract justice in 
this respect coincides with political expediency. For it 
is to the country towns and to the average professional 
and middle-class and working-class voter of the Rand and 
of Pretoria, that you must look to prevent political power 
in the colony falling too much under plutocratic influence. 
The bulk of the country voters will do what ' Het Volk ' 
tells them, and ' Het Volk ' is not going to save you from 
' Mammon.' It is quite as willing to-day as the old Trans- 
vaal Government was before the war, to make its own 
bargain with * Mammon.' It will go for Chinese labour, or 
for some bad substitute, such as forced Kaffir labour, which 
really is ' tainted with slavery,' if thereby it can only get 
complete control of the country schools. 

There never was a question of this kind, a question of 
the distribution of political power, more complex and of 
more far-reaching importance, than the present one. But 
obviously I cannot discuss its details with the noble Earl 
across the table to-night. We are in complete ignorance 
why Mr. Lyttelton's Constitution was rejected, or what 
the Government are going to put in its place. Probably 
the Government themselves do not yet know. But what 
I want particularly to ask is this. Are we never to know 
until everything is decided ? Is this matter to be with- 
drawn entirely from the cognisance of Parliament and of 
the country, until we wake up some fine morning and find 
ourselves in the presence of an accomplished fact, which 
we may greatly dislike, and there is no room for criticism 
or even for suggestion ? I most sincerely hope that the 
noble Earl will assure us that that is not going to happen. 

The case is entirely different from Mr. Lyttelton's Con- 
stitution. That was avowedly temporary and transitional. 
There would have been plenty of subsequent opportunities 



108 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 27, 

to alter and amend it. But this is to be the grant of full 
responsible government. This country is going to say its 
last word about the constitution of the Transvaal, and at 
the same time, perhaps, to give the decisive bent to the 
whole future of that colony and of South Africa. That 
is so grave a step, the issues involved are so momentous, 
that no Government is justified in taking it without first 
submitting it to public discussion. 

My Lords, I must admit that I look forward to the future 
with deep concern. I should have spoken perhaps even 
more strongly, but I have wished not to seem to make a 
party attack. My desire is to save our position in South 
Africa, and not to do anything to injure, to discredit, or 
to hamper the Government. I am not much of a party 
man any way. I have had too long and bitter an experi- 
ence of the evil effects of party spirit on those national 
interests which it has been my duty and privilege, however 
imperfectly, to serve. 

If I were a party man I should try to goad the Govern- 
ment into going still further than they have done, into 
completely crippling the industry of the Transvaal, into 
recasting the electoral system of that colony to the detri- 
ment of the British element, into hurrying on full respon- 
sible government in the Orange River Colony without any 
safeguard or precautions ; because I feel certain that, 
while the people of Great Britain may not realise what 
all this means while it is being done, they will greatly dislike 
the consequences when the thing has been done, and they 
will visit with condign punishment those who have done 
it. If I were a party man, I should rejoice to see the 
extremists, who have already dragged it so far, run away 
with the Government coach altogether. But from my 
point of view, the alienation of South Africa is too high 
a price to pay for another swing of the pendulum at home. 
For the pendulum may swing backwards and forwards 
many times, but South Africa once lost will be lost for ever. 



i9o6] LAND SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 109 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— March 27, 1906 

Land Settlement in South Africa 
[The following speech was delivered in a debate initiated by Lord 
Lovat, who had asked His Majesty's Government * (1) As to their pohcy 
in regard to land settlement in the Transvaal and Orange River colonies ; 
and (2) As to the steps they are to take to safeguard the interests of 
British farmers and others who have recently taken up land under the 
Land Settlement Ordinance in those colonies.'] 

My Lords, in venturing to address the House after the 
sympathetic speech of the noble Earl/ I do most earnestly 
beg that I may not be regarded as desiring to cause 
any trouble to the Government, or to import any bitter- 
ness or any unnecessary alarm into the discussion of the 
South African situation. I should like most sincerely 
to thank the noble Earl for the tribute which he has paid 
to the Agricultural Department of the Transvaal. To 
those of my countrymen, who have worked desperately 
hard during the last few years to introduce better methods 
of farming into the Transvaal, and that mainly in the 
interest of the Dutch, who form the majority of the popula- 
tion, it has been a subject of legitimate distress, that in all 
the discussions that have taken place about South Africa 
their useful efforts have been very largely ignored. In 
fact, I do not remember any reference to the subject in 
any discussion that has taken place in this country, until 
the sympathetic words that have just fallen from the noble 
Earl. 

I hold in my hand the Agricultural Journal of the Trans- 
vaal, which gives some account of the vast amount of 
work — both official and unofficial — which is being done. 
I have sometimes asked gentlemen more acquainted with 
agriculture than I am myself to give me their opinion of 
that publication and the work to which it refers. I am 
glad to say that I have been told by high authorities 
that it is as good as, if not better than, any work of 
the kind produced in any of our Colonies, although this is 
a colony which has been only three or four years in the 

1- Lord Elgin, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. 



no SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 27, 

British Empire. In all the discussions that have taken 
place on this subject in this country, I do not think the 
vast amount of earnest effort which has been directed to 
the improvement of the agricultural industry, which is the 
only resource of the majority of the dwellers on the land — 
this industry by which the Colonies will have mainly to 
live after the mines have been exhausted — has been at 
all sufficiently appreciated. 

The noble Earl was sympathetic with regard to the 
work done for the promotion of agriculture generally, but 
he was barely sympathetic with regard to the question of 
land settlement. He will forgive me for saying that in the 
statistics he gave to the House, he, I am sure accidentally, 
did not give land settlement quite as fair treatment as it 
deserved. I think he said there was a loss of something 
like fifty per cent. He will be glad I am sure, if I am able 
to point out that the real loss on an expenditure of some- 
thing like £2,200,000 which took place up to 30th June 
last, was only £200,000, and that only in one colony, the 
Transvaal. In the Orange River there has been an expen- 
diture of £1,200,000, and there is good reason for supposing 
that every penny of that will come back. Speaking in 
round figures, I find that in addition to the £850,000, which 
has been invested in the purchase of land at a rate so 
reasonable that the settlers on it have lately decided not 
to apply for a revaluation, there has been something like 
£150,000 invested in live-stock and improvements to the 
land, including expenditure on water boring, which has 
had successful results, and which is added to what the 
settlers have to repay. Something like £100,000 has been 
given in cash advances to settlers, while the rest is largely 
accounted for by other improvements, such as the com- 
mencement of certain expenditure on irrigation. 

I say that in the Orange River Colony the whole of 
the £1,200,000 expended is likely to come back. In the 
Transvaal, I read in the latest Report of the Commissioner 
of Lands, that he estimates there is value to the extent of 
£600,000 in land purchased, £200,000 in capital advanced 



i906] LAND SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 111 

to the settlers, and other assets, and that the loss in the 
Transvaal on this experiment amounts to only £200,000. 
That, too, was a loss incurred almost entirely in respect 
of a class known as squatter settlers — ex-irregulars, whom 
pressure of public opinion both here and in the colony 
compelled us to settle on the land immediately after the 
war, although the conditions were not favourable to such 
settlement, and although these men were not the sort of 
settlers we should have selected if we had had a free hand, 
and not the sort who are being selected under the careful 
methods of to-day. 

Lord Elgin : I was wrong in regard to the fifty per 
cent. loss. I see that the noble Lord is correct in his 
version. 

Lord Melner : I am glad the noble Earl recognises 
that. I felt sure it was merely an accidental mistake on his 
part. I would close this part of the discussion by simply 
saying that, as one of the first and one of the most ardent 
believers in the policy of land settlement, I thank the noble 
Earl for his sympathetic attitude. Now, I am sorry if I have 
to introduce into this discussion what may be regarded as 
a discordant note, and expose myself once more to the 
charge of speaking not merely in a Cassandra-like spirit, 
but in a somewhat bitter spirit. There is nothing I am 
more anxious to do than to avoid this. I recognise the 
good-will of the noble Earl, and I do not want to create 
difficulties for him in the great and arduous task which he 
has before him. But if I am to help him I must tell the 
House quite frankly what I know. And what I know is 
this — that the policy of land settlement, the position of 
the settlers at present on the land, and the future of the 
experiment, is in great and imminent danger, and that 
if special provisions are not made in the constitutional 
arrangements which are before us, not only will this great 
and beneficial work of land settlement be absolutely stopped, 
but the majority of those men at present on the land — I am 



112 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 27, 

speaking of the Orange River Colony — will be squeezed out. 
I wish to support that statement by one or two authorities. 
The noble Earl says these men have got their legal rights, 
and it is not to be supposed that, whatever constitutional 
arrangements are made, they will be in any danger. It 
is true they have their legal rights ; but it is also true that, 
if these new settlers, who have to contend with all the 
difficulties he has pointed out, have not in the first years 
of their struggle a sympathetic and helpful administra- 
tion that will give them time, and not press for instalments 
in years when they have met with serious and exceptional 
misfortunes, their position is an absolutely unsafe one. 

Now, what is the feeling of the settlers themselves about 
this matter ? Not so very long before I left South Africa, 
the administration, which, of course, at that time was 
thoroughly sympathetic to the settlers, was making certain 
advances to the settlers in the Orange River Colony for the 
purpose of purchasing sheep, which they were to repay 
in five years, an experiment which I am glad to say has 
proved so far a very successful one. The deputation of 
settlers which interviewed the Government on the subject 
was headed by one of the most energetic and capable of 
the settlers, chosen by themselves, and in the course of 
the discussion he made the following remarks, which I am 
quoting from the official shorthand note which was taken 
at the time. He said : — 

' There is one other matter which appears to the settlers as 
one of the gravest importance to their interests. Suppose 
Government makes this grant, and another Government comes 
into power at home, and the Orange River Colony is given respon- 
sible government, what will be the position of the settlers ? 
The land settlement scheme will meet with very great opposi- 
tion. The settlers would Hke to see this Government place 
land settlement on a sound basis, so that it will be beyond the 
power of any representative Government to oust them from 
their holdings. They are all of opinion that if self-government 
is granted to the Orange River Colony in the near future, it will 
be a lamentable mistake. If I can go back to the settlers and 



i9o6] LAND SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 113 

tell them that there is going to be no change, that any change 
of Government cannot affect their interests ia any way, if I can 
say that they must just go on as best they can, being assured of 
the sympathy of the Government, and that grace will be given to 
them until good times come, then I know that the men will be 
satisfied to go on and do their level best. But these men are 
sensible enough to know that they will receive not the slightest 
consideration when responsible government comes.' 

That was the feeling of a representative man among the 
settlers little more than a year ago. What is their feeling 
to-day ? I have here a letter — one of the many painful 
and distressing letters which reached me by my last South 
African mail — in which the writer says : — 

' After all England has sacrificed and suffered for the Orange 
River Colony, it is, indeed, hard if the Dutch are to be put 
in power ; for, however much Ministers in England may hope 
and expect, it will briag about bitter feeling between the two 
nations. It will mean that the Enghsh wUl have to trek. It 
spells ruin to the very people who in time would be the greatest 
factor in making the colony both loyal and prosperous. Would 
there be any use in the English people appealing to the king ? 
If there was any idea of treating the Boers in the way it is con- 
templated to treat the British, most of whom fought for their 
country, the whole world would be flooded with their abuse 
and recriminations. It is already suggested that the new con- 
stitution must safeguard the black population ; but hundreds, 
nay thousands, of English men, women, and children, may be 
complacently abandoned to starvation. Hope to the contrary 
will be as much use as if a man pushed another who could not 
swim into deep water and calmly trusted he would not drown.' 

I make every allowance for the state of alarm in which 
these people are, and I make every allowance for a certain 
amount of exaggeration ; but another letter which reached 
me by the same. mail, and which comes also from the Orange 
River Colony, and from a Government official familiar with 
the conditions of many of the settlers, says : — 

' The prospect before the settlers is dark. If the Govern- 
ment were to foreclose, the great majority of them could not 
weather the storm.' 



114 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 27, 

I press this upon the Government now that there is 
time, in order that they may avoid steps which would lead 
to disaster. The position is this. I entirely agree with 
the noble Duke,i that there is a good feehng between the 
individual Dutch farmer and the English farmer settled 
side by side with him upon the land. There is very often 
good feeling ; there is a growing tendency towards good 
feeling. That is the reason why some of us are so intensely 
keen to see the settlement of British people on the land. 
We know that they will never be more than a small pro- 
portion, that the majority must be Dutch ; but we feel 
that the introduction of a British element to the land brings 
British people into closer relations and closer touch with 
the Dutch people than is possible in the towns, and forms 
a valuable link between the two. Not only do they come 
to regard the Dutch with greater sympathy, but they 
create in the Dutch greater sympathy with Englishmen 
than they would otherwise feel. 

Even to-day, when the difficulties are great, and when 
memories of the war have not yet died out, and when for 
many reasons the experiment is being tried under unfavour- 
able conditions, there is a growing good feeling between 
the British settlers and their Dutch neighbours. But I 
say with deep regret, yet again with absolute conviction, 
that that good feeling between individuals, on which we 
are justified in resting so much hope, is not going to 
save the British settlers from hostile executive action in a 
country in which they may have few representatives or no 
representatives in the Legislature. It will not save them, 
because the policy of the dominant party, or rather the 
policy of the men whom for the next ten or twenty years 
the Dutch Afrikanders will follow, and return to power and 
support in power, is a policy directly hostile to the settlers, 
and is so openly declared. 

The language used by the leading Dutch newspapers 
is language of bitter hostility to the plan of land settle- 
ment, which they wrongly regard as an attempt to swamp 

^ The Duke of Westminster. 



i9o6] LAND SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 115 

the Dutch, whereas it is an attempt to introduce a new and 
valuable element on the land, which shall form a link with 
the Dutch. It is an absolute certainty that these settlers 
have got to face in the Orange River Colony — I am not 
speaking of the Transvaal, where their position is a safer 
one — hostile executive action in future. Therefore, although 
I could not expect the noble Earl to say more than he has 
said to-night on the subject, I would most earnestly submit 
the consideration of this question to him and to the Govern- 
ment in order that they may make some provision to protect 
these men, liable as they are to be ousted by a hostile 
executive. I beg them to take that to heart. 

And let me assure them that there is no single act which 
could be done by this Government, especially if they are 
going to give complete responsible government at once 
to the Orange River Colony — there is no single act which 
would be more calculated to reassure the British minority, 
who may possibly not have a single representative in the 
new Legislature, than if the Government took steps for 
the protection of this population on the land. Surely it 
is not a difficult thing to do. What is to prevent the 
Government, while giving if they please— and the Govern- 
ment know that I think it a rash proceeding — full and 
responsible government to the Orange River Colony, from 
maintaining the Land Settlement Board for a certain number 
of years as a branch of the British administration and 
under the Colonial Office ? What objection is there to 
their cutting out, as it were, this little corner of the adminis- 
tration and keeping it under their own control, and so 
ensuring that these settlers shall continue to receive that 
sympathetic and considerate treatment without which it 
is certain that many of them will go to the wall ? 

Nothing can possibly be calculated to start responsible 
government under more favourable circumstances than 
any act on the part of the Government at home, which 
would show its recognition of the difficulties of these people 
and its desire to protect them. Even if their fears were 
groundless — and I am convinced that they are not — the 



116 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 24. 

fact of the Government here extending its protecting hand 
to them at a time like the present would be one not only 
reassuring to them but most reassuring to the whole British 
minority in the colony. That minority is at the present 
moment in a state of the greatest anxiety and alarm. There 
can be no doubt of it whatever ; and if that anxiety and 
alarm continue, they will prove of the greatest difficulty 
to the Government in any scheme it may submit to Parlia- 
ment. Proper consideration of this land settlement and 
proper protection of the settlers on the land would be more 
than anything else conducive to the good reception of fresh 
constitutional arrangements in the Orange River Colony. 
I hope I may be acquitted, for once, of having imported 
anything like bitterness into the discussion, in trying to 
impress on the Government the great seriousness of the 
question and the magnitude of the issue involved. 

LONDON, Empire Day.— May 24, 1906 

[In the early months of 1906 Lord Milner was once more the object of 
sustained attack by the extreme Radical and pro-Boer section of the 
dominant political party, flushed with their victory at the poUs, and 
greatly incensed by his criticisms of the South African policy of the 
Government — see p. 93. An incident which had occurred in the adminis- 
tration of the Transvaal, unknown to the High Commissioner and due 
entirely to the error of a subordinate, but for which Lord Milner accepted 
entire responsibiUty, was seized on as an opportunity, and made the 
point and pretext of assault. And a resolution of censure, which in a 
modified form the Government accepted, was proposed and pushed 
through the House of Commons. 

This proceeding was not approved by the average Briton at home 
and abroad. Feehng was outraged by the punishment of a public 
servant who had recently completed a task of great difficulty and anxiety, 
committed to him originally, with the approval of both parties, because 
of his conspicuous fairness, and in the conduct of which, under trial, and 
against intrigue and obloquy, he had upheld the name and cause 
of Englishmen. 

A resolution expressing ' high appreciation of the services rendered by 
Lord Milner in South Africa to the Crown and the Empire ' was proposed 
by Lord Halifax in the House of Lords on March 29, 1906, and was 
carried against the Government by 170 votes to 35. A piibUc address 



I906] EMPIRE DAY 117 

to the same effect received no less than 370,000 signatures in the United 
Kjngdom. And on Empire Day 1906 Lord MUner was entertained by a 
gathering greater in all respects but one, and more representative than 
that of March 29, 1897, and constituting as remarkable a tribute of the 
kind as is recorded. Mr. Chamberlain presided, and proposed Lord 
Milner's health, as Mr. Asquith had proposed it on the former occasion 
— see p. 1 — the other speakers being Lord Curzon and the late 
Field-Marshal Sir George White. The following was Lord Milner'a 
speech in reply] : — 

Mr. Chamberlain, my Lords, and Gentlemen, — I hope 
that I shall be rightly interpreting the feelings of this 
company if I do not treat the demonstration of to-night 
too much as a personal matter. Most assuredly I am not 
indifferent to the personal aspect of it. I should be a 
strange being if I were not deeply touched by, and grate- 
ful for, such a manifestation of confidence and sympathy 
as this gathering affords, culminating as it has done in the 
reception you have given to this toast, proposed by Mr. 
Chamberlain in terms so eloquent, and touched by so much 
personal feeling. I really have no words to tell you how 
deeply I appreciate your kindness. I hope my thanks 
may make up by their depth and sincerity what they lack 
in eloquence and amplitude of expression. But I am not 
so egotistical as to take it all to myself. For every man 
in this room there are hundreds who have been moved in 
one way or another to make a protest against the proceed- 
ings in the House of Commons to which Mr. Chamberlain 
has referred. On various occasions in my life, when I 
have for one reason or another occupied a position of pro- 
minence on the public stage, I have been the recipient of 
a large correspondence, not all of it complimentary. I 
suppose that is the experience of every public man. But 
never before have I had such a deluge of letters — hardly 
any of them, in this instance, unfriendly — coming from 
the most various and unexpected quarters, not only from 
many people utterly unknown to me, but often from people 
who prefaced their protests by declaring themselves political 
supporters of the present Government. I have no doubt 



118 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 24, 

whatever that they represented a large body of popular 
opinion. And the meaning of it all I take to be this, 
that there is a strong instinct in the heart of the British 
nation to treat its public servants with a certain broad 
generosity — an instinct which especially resents their 
being prejudiced in any way by the accidents and exigencies 
of party warfare. And that instinct, my Lords and gentle- 
men, is a great asset. It makes for the nation being faith- 
fully and fearlessly served. Of course, nobody desires 
that the servants of the State — I am speaking of those 
whose offices do not change with changes of party — should 
on that account be free from criticism, or, if need be, from 
censure. But the general feeling is, and it is a right feel- 
ing, that their work and service should be judged as a whole, 
that allowance should be made for their difficulties, and 
that the public should not be extreme to mark what is done 
amiss when it is neither possible nor desirable to be con- 
stantly marking every successful discharge of arduous duty. 
As I look round this room to-night I see many old friends, 
some of them friends of my college days, and some of 
even earlier days, who, no doubt, with the glorious par- 
tiality of friendship, would be anxious to stand by me, as 
I hope I should stand by them, in any time of stress. There 
are many more, distinguished in political life, with whom 
I have had the honour to be brought into contact in the 
course of my public work. But there are yet others, and 
not a few, not personally known to me, though well known 
to the world for their eminence in their several walks of life, 
who, as a general rule, take no active part in political con- 
troversy, and who certainly can in no sense be described 
as party men. Their presence, which I deeply appreciate, 
is due, I take it, to that movement of public opinion of 
which I have spoken. Their desire is to show their recogni- 
tion of service rendered, however imperfectly, yet at least 
honestly and whole-heartedly rendered, to the sovereign and 
the nation, and their disapproval of the attempt to cast an 
unwonted slur upon the man who rendered it on what 
appear to them inadequate grounds. But they have 



i9o6] EMPIRE DAY 119 

rallied to the defence not so much of a man as of a prin- 
ciple. And so I venture to thank them, not only on my 
own behalf but for all those who may now or hereafter find 
themselves in positions of exceptional difficulty in the 
service of the State, and standing in need of an indulgent 
judgment on the part of their countrymen. 

But, having said that, let me hasten to add that I have 
no wish to pose as a martyr. If ever I had ground for 
complaint I have been amply compensated. Neither have 
I had much time or heart, in these last few months, to 
worry about my personal concerns. I have been far too 
anxious about South Africa. This is not the occasion to 
enter into details about that burning topic of political 
controversy. Indeed, it is one about which I find it par- 
ticularly difficult to speak on any occasion without the 
fear of doing more harm than good. The Ministry evidently 
are or have been — I know nothing of their secrets, I am 
only judging from facts and utterances patent to all men — 
deeply divided on this subject. More than that, they have 
sometimes been unable to resist being deflected, even from 
their own declared policy, by the pressure of a certain 
section of their followers. That section is very active and 
militant, and it has accordingly exercised an influence 
altogether out of proportion, as I venture to think, to the 
amount of public opinion behind it on this particular 
question. My difficulty has always been how to warn the 
Government and the nation of the dangers ahead, of some 
of which Ministers themselves appeared at one time quite 
unaware, without stirring up those, who were pushing the 
Government into extreme courses, to a yet greater activity 
in mischief. But there was a time at which silence would 
have been, so at least it seemed to me, little short of a crime. 
Knowing South Africa as I do, deeply attached as I am 
to that country, and bound by every consideration of 
honour and gratitude to those who have striven with me 
to keep it within the Empire, how could I be silent when 
a course was being pursued which could only lead to the 
economic ruin of South Africa and the complete political 



120 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 24, 

alienation of her people from the Mother Country ? Mis- 
takes were being made, even worse mistakes were being 
threatened, while the tone adopted towards the colonists 
by some of the followers of the Government, and, I must 
add, by some of its mouthpieces, was calculated to produce 
the greatest exasperation. But it is fair to say, and I for 
one am most glad to be able to say, that things seem lately 
to have taken something of a turn for the better. It may 
be that a closer acquaintance with the facts has induced 
a change of attitude. In any case, moderating influences 
are making themselves felt within the ranks of the party 
in power. It is as yet too soon to say whether they will 
triumph. But there is at least ground for hope that the 
continuity of pohcy, which has been so disastrously inter- 
rupted, may to some extent be re-established. It seems 
to me that at this moment Lord Elgin, for whose fairness 
of temper and excellence of intention it is impossible to 
feel anything but respect, has got a great chance, a chance 
more especially of recovering some of that colonial sympathy 
which has been so largely alienated. In the native trouble 
which has arisen in Natal, and which is a grave trouble, 
and may be a protracted one, even if it never becomes acute, 
the Imperial authorities can in many ways give invaluable 
assistance to the colonists. If they give it judiciously 
and unobtrusively, without undue interference with the 
men directly responsible, and if at the same time they can 
defend the actions and motives of the colonists from 
unjust aspersion and attack, it will go a long way to con- 
vince, not only the people of Natal, but the people of all 
South Africa, that the Government of Great Britain are 
still their friends. I venture in aU humility to throw 
out that suggestion. It is clear that what all patriotic 
men have to aim at is to try to remove these delicate ques- 
tions of colonial policy, as questions of foreign policy have 
already, for the time being at least, been removed — and 
that with the happiest results — from the arena of party 
conflict. If the Ministry will only resist the impulsion 
of those whose judgment is warped by suspicion and 



i9o6] EMPIRE DAY 121 

distrust of their colonial fellow-countrymen, if they will 
only stick to their own better mind, and let themselves be 
guided by the man on the spot, to whose judgment and 
statesmanship they have themselves paid the strongest 
tribute, then I say, it is not for me or for any one who has 
the welfare of South Africa at heart to harp upon past 
errors, or to twit them with inconsistency. It is one thing 
to criticise in order to prevent mischief, quite another to 
criticise for the mere love of the thing. I have made too 
many mistakes myself to take any pleasure in that sort of 
polemics. Indeed, I can honestly say that I have no 
more fervent hope than that I may be able with a good 
conscience to abstain from further fighting and to watch, 
in silence, the affairs of South Africa developing, not, 
doubtless, altogether in accordance with my own views — 
that is more than any man can expect — ^but at any rate 
on lines not inconsistent with her future prosperity and 
unity, or with her becoming more and more closely bound 
in interest and sympathy to the other members of the 
British family of nations. That, after all, is the great 
object for which so many efiforts and sacrifices have been 
made, but which, if attained, will compensate us for them all. 
The expression of that hope suggests some considera- 
tions of a wider, and, I would gladly think, less contro- 
versial kind. I cannot but feel that it adds greatly to the 
interest of this gathering that you have chosen to hold 
it on Empire Day, and that the chair is occupied by a 
statesman who has done more than any man living to give 
new life to the aspirations of which Empire Day is the 
expression. No doubt there are reasons of a personal 
kind why I must be especially appreciative of the part he 
has taken in the proceedings to-night. During more than 
six eventful years he was my political chief. And I weU 
remember the impression which he made on all those who 
served under him. Lord Rosebery has eloquently said of 
the elder Pitt that ' there was that in him which made 
every remote soldier and blue-jacket feel, when he was in 
office, that there was a man in Downing Street, and a man 



122 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [july io. 

whose eye penetrated everywhere.' My Lords and gentle- 
men, there was a man in Downing Street in my time, and 
there was that in him which made every remote servant 
of the State work with better heart and a keener purpose, 
and made the colonists, with whom Downing Street has 
often been a byword for bureaucratic rigidity and aloof- 
ness, believe in a new Downing Street full of vigilance and 
sympathy. And Mr. Chamberlain, when he ceased to be 
my chief, did not cease to be my protector. I am not 
likely to forget that only the other day, when I was taken 
to task for something with which he had no concern what- 
ever, and connected with a policy for which he was in no 
way responsible, he chivalrously came to the rescue and 
defended me in a manner which almost made it a pleasure 
to be attacked. But I have something more in my mind 
than these personal causes for gratitude. I am thinking 
of what we all owe him, all of us, at least, who look beyond 
the Empire as it is to the Empire as it might be, for the 
immense impulse he has given to the thoughts and sym- 
pathies and movements which make for a more effective 
union of the scattered communities of the British race. 
I know that in the practical application of that great idea 
everything as yet remains to be done. I know that the 
idea itself is far from being as yet generally accepted or 
even clearly understood. It may even be said to have 
had — in this country at any rate — a temporary set-back. 
We are all at sixes and sevens about the best way to pro- 
ceed, and in the confusion over the right road to the goal, 
the goal itself seems at times to be receding out of sight. 
But the disappointment which one feels as the years pass 
and one grows older, and nothing happens, does not alter 
the fact that the idea is silently growing all the time. The 
surface waters are agitated hither and thither, but there 
is a strong under-current which may yet carry the ship 
into port. And the younger nations, I believe, are more 
affected by it than we are. They are moving if we are 
not. That is the most hopeful sign of the times, and it is 
due in great measure to the new spirit infused into the 



i9o6] COST OF NATIONAL SERVICE 123 

relations of the Mother Country with the Colonies, and of 
the Colonies with one another by the broad-minded policy, 
the keen sympathy with colonial aspirations, the intense 
faith in the race, which characterised the administration 
of Mr. Chamberlain. By his generous treatment of the 
Colonies as equals he swept away the old idea of ascend- 
ancy, which they regarded with suspicion, and gave a 
great impetus to the new idea of partnership, which appeals 
alike to their interest and to their seK-respect. And now 
that they have got hold of it they show a strong disposi- 
tion to work it out in their own way. It may be that, 
while we are hesitating and debating, the first practical 
steps towards the realisation of his ideals will be taken by 
the Colonies among themselves, and that new links of 
Empire will be forged on the shores of the Pacific and the 
Indian Ocean. 

But, my Lords and gentlemen, you may think that I 
am growing too fanciful, and I am certain that I have been 
too long. Your kindness and indulgence have drawn me 
on, but I am not going to be drawn on any further. My 
simple duty to-night is performed when I have thanked 
you, as I do one and all once more from the bottom of my 
heart, for the great honour which you have done me, and 
which must always remain one of the most cherished 
memories of my life. 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— July 10, 1906 

Cost of National Service 

[The following is a passage from a speech on Lord Roberts's motion ' to 
call attention to the unpreparedness of the nation for war, and the 
necessity for action being taken in accordance with the recommendation 
of the Elgin Commission; that Commission having declared that the 
true lesson of the war was, that no military system could be considered 
satisfactory which did not contain powers of expansion outside the limit 
of the regular forces of the Crown, whatever that limit might be.'] 

When we are considering the cost of such a system, do 
not let us forget that there are many ways of wasting 



124 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 14. 

money upon military preparations — waste to which a 
nation that has some uneasiness about its own military 
weakness is particularly liable. There is the waste of 
money involved in constant changes, in foolish, spasmodic 
expenditure, often followed by equally spasmodic and 
foolish retrenchment. If you add together all the losses 
in which this country has been involved by continually 
changing its military system, by its continual unprepared- 
ness for war, losses which perhaps quadrupled and quin- 
tupled the cost of the last war in which we were engaged, I 
think it may be doubted whether a system of universal 
military training, however costly, would not, if only from 
the sense of security it would give us, make up for the 
sacrifices it would entail. 

I am sure of this, that there is one form of military 
expenditure which in any case is not lost. I mean expendi- 
ture in developing the manhood of the nation. You get 
it back in vastly improved physique — one of the most serious 
problems, I believe, which faces this nation at the present 
moment — in the development of certain qualities of dis- 
cipline, order, method, precision, punctuality, and, above 
all, in a great development of public spirit. The money 
which is spent in the physical and moral development of 
your men you get back in peace as well as in war. At the 
risk of wearying your Lordships, I would in conclusion 
quote, from among the mass of quotations I could bring 
forward from competent and trained observers, what has 
been said with regard to the effect of the German military 
system, with all its faults, upon the progress of modern 
Germany, by a very able and careful inquirer, and one who 
is especially distinguished by the total absence of any of 
that bias, which so often attaches to sociological experts, 
against their'own country. The following is a passage from 
a book on Industrial Efficiency, by Dr. Shadwell : — 

' Under the German military system the liability comes just 
when a lad has learned his trade, and undoubtedly forms a 
break in his civil career, but I have not met with two opinions 



i9o6] BRITISH SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 126 

about its educational value to the individual and its industrial 
value to the nation. Perhaps the most striking fact is the 
physical benefit derived from the exercises, the drill, gymnastics, 
and a regular life. It turns a weedy, anaemic lad into a well- 
knit, upstanding man, with sound organs and well-developed 
limbs. It further teaches him cleanHness, discipline, order, 
authority, self-respect, and respect for others. The effect in 
the workshop is visible at every turn. It is not too much to 
say that military service has been in a great measure the making 
of industrial Germany.' 

That is the opinion of many men who have studied 
carefully the effect of the military system of Continental 
nations, not so much from the point of view of their military 
strength as from that of their social organisation and 
industrial efficiency. For my own part I venture, however 
paradoxical it may seem, to express the conviction that 
the nations who, like the Germans, adhere to the principle of 
universal military training, are perfectly right, and that in the 
long-run, the peoples who are prepared to undergo the toil 
and face the danger of personal service will outstrip, not 
only in war, but also in the competitions of peace, the 
peoples who shrink from it. 



HOUSE OF LORDS.— November 14, 1906 

British Settlers in South Africa 

[The following speech was made on a motion by Lord Lovat — see 
p. 109 — who had renewed his inquiries with regard to the intention of 
His Majesty's Government as to land settlement in the Transvaal and 
Orange River Colonies, and the steps they proposed to take to safeguard 
the interests of British settlers. Great anxiety was at this time felt as 
to the future of these settlers, who, in view of the impending introduc- 
tion of self-government in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, were 
likely to pass under an administration which regarded them in no friendly 
spirit, and that before they had had time to overcome the initial 
difficulties of their new position. Ex-President Steyn had said: — 
' Boycott the English and guide your political action by the cries of the 
women and children done to death in the Concentration Camps.' General 
Botha had more temperately declared on April 7, 1908: — 'We have 



126 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 14, 

already in many ways pointed out that we are against the land settle- 
ment poHcy of Lord MUner in South Africa.' Under these circumstances 
the friends of the British settlers made a great effort, which was 
ultimately successful, to obtain protection for the settlers by having 
them placed for some years under a Land Board directly responsible to 
the British Government. At the time when this speech was delivered, 
no decision had yet been arrived at, and the uncertain tone of the 
Colonial Secretary was calculated to heighten the uneasiness felt by the 
champions of the British settlers.] 

My Lords, it was with extreme regret that I listened 
to the remarks of the noble Earl the Secretary of State 
for the Colonies. I do not think that he appreciates, 
or that the Government at all appreciate, the strength of 
the feeling which exists on this subject among all those 
who are interested in British South Africa, or the deep 
feeling which exists, and the still deeper feeling which, I 
believe, will exist, throughout the country, when the danger 
to which these settlers are at present exposed becomes a 
realised fact. On the other hand, I am greatly encouraged 
by the speech which has been delivered by the noble Earl ^ 
who has just sat down, who, I think, on this question voices 
a large amount of opinion on the part of the supporters of 
the Government, and of the population of the country 
generally. 

I really deeply deplore the total inadequacy of the state- 
ment the Secretary for the Colonies has seen fit to make 
to-night. He referred to former expressions of sympathy 
of his with these settlers, which he said I had acknowledged. 
I fully acknowledge them. I have never had any doubt 
as to the sympathy of the noble Earl, but what we want 
is to see his sympathy converted into acts, and the last 
moment is approaching when that can be done. I realise 
as much as any one the extreme inconvenience to which 
your Lordships are put by this question having to be 
brought forward on the present occasion. I apologise 
for intruding at this time, but what I wish your Lordships 
to realise is, that we are making this intrusion because it 
is a matter of practical and vital urgency. The provision 

^ Lord Durham. 



i906] BRITISH SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 127 

of special protection for the settlers, for which we are appeal- 
ing, must be made while the matter stands as it does at 
present, or it cannot be made at all. Let the Letters- 
Patent issue without any reference to land settlement, and 
the settlers will pass automatically under the control of the 
responsible government which is to be set up. You may 
say that these Letters-Patent are for the Transvaal, and 
that in the Transvaal, after all, British settlers will have 
advocates to stand up for them. It is true, I fully admit, 
that the risks in the Transvaal are less than in the Orange 
River Colony. But even in the Transvaal there are risks, 
owing to the fact that there is no provision for the repre- 
sentation of minorities. These settlers will have no direct 
representation in the Transvaal Parliament at all. But 
a point which is of far greater importance is this, that the 
position of the settlers, if it is precarious in the Transvaal, 
is more than precarious — it is a position of almost certain 
ruin, unless something is done for them — in the Orange 
River Colony. If these Letters-Patent issue without any 
provision for their protection in the Transvaal, then I say 
it is a moral certainty that, when it comes to the Orange 
River Colony, the fact that nothing has been done for the 
settlers in the Transvaal will be quoted as a precedent for 
leaving them in the lurch in the sister colony. And so we 
are being drawn step by step down the slope which leads 
to the abyss of another disgraceful desertion of those who 
have served us in South Africa. This is my excuse for 
having intruded on your Lordships' time. 

I do not think the historical retrospect in which the 
noble Earl has indulged makes his case any stronger. That 
retrospect, on the other hand, will show that we have 
exercised the extremest patience and the greatest possible 
desire not unduly to press or hurry the Government in 
this matter. And if I press them at all to-day it is simply 
because I feel that, having been the agent of the British 
Government in putting these people on to the land, and 
having induced them to put themselves in the position in 
which they are, I should be the basest of deserters if I did 



128 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 14, 

not do all that lies in my power to save them while there 
is yet time. 

Let me follow as briefly as possible the retrospect of 
the noble Earl. He said that on 27th March he expressed 
his sympathy with these settlers. I quite agree. He did 
make a very sympathetic speech, which filled me, at any 
rate, with considerable hope. But what was his reason 
then for not going more into detail about this matter — 
because it is to be observed that, although the noble Earl 
has several times expressed his sympathy, he has always 
given the vital question the go-by ? On that occasion he 
said it would be prematiu:e to discuss the matter before 
we had the Report of the Commission, which was going 
out to South Africa to study the question of the Constitu- 
tion. The Commissioners have been home, how many 
months ? Three or four. I should like to know, it is one 
of the things we want to know, what did the Commissioners 
tell the noble Earl and His Majesty's Government about 
the settlers ? It would be a great satisfaction to us to 
hear that the Commissioners reported that they thought 
our anxiety was all moonshine and that the settlers in the 
Orange River Colony would be perfectly safe if they were 
handed over to the tender mercies of a Boer majority. Is 
the noble Earl prepared to tell us that the Report of the 
Commission has allayed all fears on this subject ? I think 
we are entitled to know what the Report of the Commis- 
sion is. 

Then the noble Earl went on to refer to the next occa- 
sion on which this matter was brought up, in July. At 
that date he foreshadowed an attempt, which, as a matter 
of fact, was subsequently made by His Majesty's Govern- 
ment, to do something for the protection of these settlers. 
He said that His Majesty's Government were in favour 
generally of the principle of a Land Board, but that they 
expressed their approval subject to certain reservations, 
and one of these was that there must be general consent. 
It seemed to me, and I said so at the time, a most pre- 
posterous thing to admit that these people needed the 



i9o6] BRITISH SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 129 

protection of a special Land Board, because they were not 
safe in the hands of the majority of the inhabitants of the 
Orange River Colony, or of the Government responsible 
to that majority, and yet to appeal to that very majority 
to say whether they were to be protected or not. 

You ask the people against whom they are to be pro- 
tected, ' Will you approve of our making special provision 
for their protection ? ' The thing is a perfect farce. And 
the truly farcical nature of it came out in the proceedings 
initiated by Lord Selborne, as the noble Earl said, on the 
instructions of His Majesty's Government, with regard to 
this matter. I should like to refer once more to the terms 
of Lord Selborne's letter, which was issued with the approval 
of the Government. It contains a remarkable admission : — 

' His Majesty's Government,' it says, ' feel that they have a 
special obligation to those who have become settlers during 
the period when they have been directly responsible for the 
Government of the two colonies, and it is a matter in which 
public opinion in the United Kingdom takes a deep interest. 
They would like, therefore, to see land settlement placed under 
a Board appointed by themselves and altogether divorced from 
poUtics, and to that Board they would like to see handed over 
the responsibility for all existing settlers.' 

That was the proposal which Lord Selborne was authorised 
to make to various representative people in these colonies. 
But then this suggestion was coupled with a proposal to 
raise an additional £4,000,000, partly for the relief of the 
settlers, but partly for further compensation to the Boers, 
and partly for some other objects, and in that form it seems 
to have met with no particular favour anywhere. I never 
expected that it would. I cannot conceive how the Govern- 
ment could have supposed that, with elections just impend- 
ing, with these colonies about to be endowed with the 
supreme blessing of party government — that is to say, with 
the population marshalled into two brigades, each looking 
out with hawk-like keenness for some reproach to throw 
in the face of the other — I say I cannot conceive how any 



130 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 14. 

one could have supposed that under these circumstances 
any party in the Transvaal or the Orange River Colony 
would make themselves responsible for an additional 
burden of £4,000,000 being placed on the shoulders of the 
Colonies, in order to get His Majesty's Government out of 
a difficulty. It was, in my judgment, quite unreasonable 
to expect that any result would follow from that proposal. 
I do not comment on the absurdity of going cap in hand to 
the Boers and asking them whether they would like to pay 
another million and a half for British land settlement. Of 
course they would not like to. But then it was anticipated 
that the sop which was to be offered to them of another 
million and a quarter for compensation to themselves 
would induce them to swallow the pill. Really it is difficult 
not to smile at the simplicity of those who were seized with 
that idea. The Boers expect that they are going shortly 
to be in power. They know they will be in power in the 
Orange River Colony. Whether they will be in power in the 
Transvaal Colony or not, they are aware that any Govern- 
ment there will be more or less at their mercy. They look 
forward, as a matter of fact, to the time when they will be 
able to provide themselves with this million and a quarter, 
or any other sum which they may feel desirous of devoting 
to compensation to themselves, without the accompani- 
ment of any disagreeable concession to the British settlers. 
The whole plan of saving these settlers by means of this 
appeal to the various parties in the Transvaal and the 
Orange River Colony was doomed to failure from the very 
first. 

I wish briefly to sum up the position as it strikes me. Is 
it, or is it not, a right thing to continue to offer opportunities 
for British colonists, whether coming from this country or 
from the other colonies, who, remember, are interested in 
this matter, too — is it, or is it not, a right thing to keep the 
door open for them to settle in the new colonies, which have 
come under the British flag by the exertions of this country 
and of those colonies also ? If it is right to keep that door 
open, ought not His Majesty's Government to keep it open 



i9o6] BRITISH SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 131 

without asking any one whether they are to be allowed to 
do so or not ? But there is a stronger point even than that. 
Granted that the policy of land settlement was a mistake, 
that the policy ought to be abandoned, as I hope it wiU 
not be abandoned. Even so, you cannot abandon the 
obligations you have already incurred under it, and surely 
it is strange for a British Government to go to any body 
of men anywhere and ask their consent to its fulfilling its 
own obligations of honour. 

I have felt bound to speak strongly on this subject, 
because I feel it is a vital and urgent matter. Let me say 
that I still have hope, a strong hope, and especially after 
the words we have heard from the ministerial benches, that 
His Majesty's Government may see fit to convert the 
sympathy which I have no doubt they, or some of them, 
feel, into action, and not only to do that, but to do it 
promptly, and let us know where we stand. 

I plead, in the first instance, for a continuance of the 
policy of land settlement as a policy. Remember, it was 
not lightly adopted. It was adopted on the recommenda- 
tion of a Royal Commission sent out expressly to study this 
question at the time of the war, who reported as follows : — 

' Dealing with the question as a M^hole, we desire to express 
our firm conviction that a well-considered scheme of settlement 
in South Africa by men of British origin is of the most vital 
importance to the future prosperity of British South Africa. 
We find among those who wish to see British rule in South 
Africa maintained and its influence for good extended but one 
opinion upon this subject. There even seems reason to fear 
lest the vast expenditure of blood and treasure which has marked 
the war should be absolutely wasted, unless some strenuous 
effort be made to establish in the country, at the close of the 
war, a thoroughly British population large enough to make a 
recurrence of division and disorder impossible.' 

It was that policy which was initiated, not by me, as one 
noble lord, I think, said — I was only the agent — but on 
the Report of the Royal Commission by the British Govern- 
ment, with, I believe, the full concurrence of the nation, 



132 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 14, 

for, whatever differences of opinion there may be on other 
questions, I have not yet heard that a policy of land settle- 
ment is disapproved of except by a few extremists. 

Here, then, is this policy, adopted on the recommenda- 
tion of a Royal Commission, instituted for the maintenance 
of our future power in South Africa, a policy, the progress of 
which has been steadily satisfactory, and which has been con- 
tinued to a stage at which we have gained experience, and 
have learned, by such experience, how it may be carried 
on with greater advantage than it could be in the first 
necessary stage of experiment. Here, I say, is this policy 
in absolute jeopardy, and its future depends entirely on 
its being taken out of the hands of the new Government of 
the two colonies, and placed under independent manage- 
ment. The whole of our past efforts in that direction 
appear to my mind to be imperilled. But there is a higher 
obligation even than the maintenance of policy, and that 
is the obligation of honour. You may abandon that policy 
— ^though I should deeply regret it, and I know the nation 
would ultimately regret it — ^but you cannot abandon 
honour. After all the melancholy instances in South 
African history of vacillation on the part of this country, 
and the desertion of those who have staked their lives and 
fortunes on the continuance of a particular course, you 
cannot, surely, add another and one of the most disgraceful 
pages to the dark annals of our chopping and changing in 
South African policy. 

It is said that if you were to place the land settlement 
fund, the lands which have been bought with it, and the 
tenants on those lands, under the control of a special Board 
appointed by the Imperial Government, it would be an 
interference with responsible government. I think that 
is an absolute misapprehension. We do not propose to 
interfere with the freedom of the legislatures of the new 
colonies, or to put any restriction upon the action of their 
executive governments. I should be the last to suggest 
such a thing. I say you cannot both grant responsible 
government and not grant it. You cannot say to these 



i9o6] BRITISH SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 133 

colonies, * Now you are free to manage your own affairs, 
but in this or that particular you must manage them in 
accordance with our wishes.' But what is there incon- 
sistent with responsible government in retaining certain 
lands in the new colonies under a British Board responsible 
to the British Government ? There would be no interfer- 
ence with the law of the colonies. These lands would be 
administered under the ordinary law. There would be 
no interference with the executive power. The executive 
power could do, as regards these settlers, exactly whatever 
it could do with regard to any other occupiers of land. But 
it seems to me that an immense protection would never- 
theless be afforded to these settlers, and it is the only pro- 
tection they ask for — the protection of a sympathetic 
landlord. That is their point. It is not that they want 
any privilege. They are at present the tenants of a body 
which is doing all it can to help them, and to give reason- 
able consideration to their difficulties, and they want to 
continue the tenants of a sympathetic landlord. 

Does anybody say it is an interference with responsible 
government for the British Government to own land in a 
British colony ? The Cape Colony has been under respon- 
sible government for thirty-four years, yet the British 
Admiralty is the owner of enormously valuable land in 
the Cape Colony, and the British War Office is the owner 
of valuable land in all the colonies of South Africa. Has 
it ever occurred to anybody to say that the ownership of 
land in a British colony by the British Government, or 
by a Board dependent on the British Government, is an 
interference with responsible government ? It is a mis- 
imderstanding of our proposal to suppose that we desire 
any interference with responsible government at all. 

I hope the House will pardon me if I refer to one more 
point, because I am certain that it will be brought up. It 
may be said, ' That is all very well. But this particular 
land is land which has been bought with money which the 
Colonies have borrowed, and on which the Colonies are 
paying interest ; and that makes all the difference.' I 



134 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14. 

fully admit that this is the case, but I say that it does not 
in the least alter the fact that the Imperial Government 
would be perfectly justified in keeping that money and 
land under its own control. After all, these £3,000,000 
are the only money out of all the milhons that we have 
spent upon South Africa in which the people of this country, 
and the people of the British Colonies who have helped us, 
have any direct interest whatever. 

We gave a free grant of £3,000,000 under the Treaty of 
Vereeniging. Directly afterwards there was a further 
grant of £2,000,000 to the so-called ' protected ' burghers, 
and there was another grant of £2,000,000 for compensa- 
tion to British and neutral subjects, who had suffered 
during the war. That was a clear £7,000,000 out of the 
Imperial Exchequer. In addition to that, the whole of 
the £35,000,000 loan, out of which these £3,000,000 would, 
according to our proposal, be taken, has been guaranteed 
by the British Government. If it had not been for that 
guarantee, the two colonies could not have raised a penny 
of it. Whatever money they did raise would have cost them 
at least four per cent. The mere fact of our giving that 
guarantee has saved the Colonies £350,000 a year in interest. 
Therefore, apart from the three grants I have mentioned, 
apart from our claim for many millions of war contribu- 
tion from the Transvaal and our contingent claim on the 
Orange River Colony, if there had been no financial trans- 
action at all, except this guaranteed loan of £35,000,000, 
we should still have afforded the Colonies ample compensa- 
tion for taking £3,000,000 out of that loan for Imperial 
purposes, which, moreover, are not purposes in which the 
Colonies have no interest at all. If we took £3,000,000 to 
spend them in Great Britain, it would be a different matter ; 
but we propose to take these £3,000,000, not to spend out 
of the Colonies, but to spend in the Colonies, and aU we ask 
is that they should be kept under Imperial control. Indeed 
we are almost bound so to keep them, owing to the fact that 
these £3,000,000 were allocated for land settlement in the 
new colonies in the Act of this Parliament, confirming the 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 135 

guarantee of the loan, and this was one of the chief induce- 
ments offered to ParHament to give that guarantee at 
all. It would be a breach of that understanding, if we 
allowed any part of this money to be diverted from the 
purposes for which it was ear-marked in the Guaranteed 
Loan Act, and how can we ensure its not being diverted, 
if it passes under the control of the two new colonial 
governments, one of which at any rate is bound to be 
hostile to the policy of settlement ? For these reasons I 
hold that, although there are no doubt difficulties stand- 
ing in the way of any arrangement which would give the 
settlers protection, by placing them under the control of 
an Imperial Board, those difficulties are by no means in- 
superable. In the interests of the great policy of land 
settlement, or even if you reject that entirely, then, at least 
in the interests of British honour, I beg to make this last 
fervent appeal to His Majesty's Government to save us 
from a discreditable solution of this question. 

MANCHESTER.— December 14, 1906 

The Imperialist Creed 

[The following speech, the first to be deUvered by Lord Milner under the 
auspices of a Unionist political organisation, was given at a meeting 
arranged by the Manchester Conservative Club] : — 

When I was first invited to address the Unionists of 
Manchester, I felt very great hesitation, not because I did 
not deeply appreciate the honour of such a reception as 
this, but because I doubted, as indeed I still doubt, whether 
I had anything to offer you in return at all worthy of your 
acceptance. The date of this meeting, as I foresaw, was 
one at which the flames of party warfare would be burning 
fiercely, and in devoting an evening to public affairs you 
would naturally expect a speech dealing with the principal 
topics of current controversy. For that I knew that I 
was quite unfitted. I neither occupy nor aspire to a place 
among party leaders, indeed I am not very much of a party 
man. On many of the questions at present greatly agitat- 



136 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

ing the public mind I have no claim whatever to speak 
with authority. In twenty years of public service, spent 
mainly, but not exclusively, under Unionist Governments, 
my mind has been absorbed in questions on which opinion 
often is not, and certainly never ought to be, divided on 
ordinary party lines, and which, though they may from 
time to time become subjects of party controversy, are of 
a nature peculiarly ill-adapted to such treatment. Indeed 
I may say that of the particular problems with which, as 
a public servant, I have had any special acquaintance, 
there is not one upon the solution of which the intrusion 
of party considerations, when they have intruded, has 
not exercised an influence injurious to the national interest. 
I could give a score of instances, I could write a whole book, 
to illustrate this proposition. And that being my feeling 
and profound conviction, I am determined, as far as lies 
in my power, to do nothing to aggravate the evil, and in 
dealing with those public questions, on which alone I am 
competent to speak, to avoid, even at the risk of being 
very duU, a style and manner of treatment which would 
inevitably predispose at least half the nation to turn a 
deaf ear to anything I might have to say. 

And for this reason I do not propose to deal to-night at 
any length with South Africa. Indeed, in my desire 
to be unpolemical, I intended to give that subject the 
go-by altogether. But the publication of the Letters-Patent 
yesterday has made absolute silence impossible. It might 
be interpreted as acquiescence. And in a sense I do 
acquiesce. I bow to fate. Nothing is more repugnant 
to me than to go on bewailing evils which I am powerless 
to exorcise. But I retract none of my criticisms of the 
policy of which the Letters-Patent are the embodiment. 
As for the Letters-Patent themselves, they contain nothing 
which, having regard to past declarations of the Govern- 
ment, can be regarded as a surprise. In one respect they 
are welcome. I refer to the provisions creating a temporary 
Land Settlement Board in the Transvaal Colony. The 
policy of land settlement no doubt is knocked on the head 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 137 

— a fact deeply to be regretted. But existing settlers at 
least are to receive some measure of protection. And as 
this precedent will no doubt be followed in the case of the 
Orange River Colony, it is not without importance, not so 
much from the political as from the moral point of view. 
To have left the settlers entirely in the lurch would have 
been a deep stain on the honour of the British Government ; 
and great credit is due to those supporters of the Ministry 
whose action has no doubt been instrumental in averting it. 
But in other respects the document makes aU the mischief 
which we were led to expect. More harm than good must 
have resulted in any case from the premature introduction 
of responsible government — that is party government — 
into either of the new colonies, though, no doubt, under 
ordinary circumstances it would have been fraught with 
less danger in the Transvaal than in the Orange River 
Colony. Indeed, whatever its dangers in the Transvaal, 
it would, if honestly carried out, have had one great com- 
pensating advantage. The labour question, which is the 
one question of absolutely vital importance to that colony 
at the present time, would have been removed from the 
devastating interference of the House of Commons, and 
left to be settled by the people on the spot, who are most 
deeply concerned, who know the facts, and whose morality, 
if not perhaps of quite the same high type as that exhibited 
in the slavery posters of the general election, or the use 
recently made of Mr. Bucknill's report, is still, as I know 
from living among them, quite equal to the average morality 
of their fellow-citizens in this country. To have left the 
people of the Transvaal free to settle this question for 
themselves, as the Ministry originally intended, would 
have been to carry out the principle of self-government. 
But instead of that, the question is first settled, or rather 
unsettled, for them, in the Letters-Patent, by the complete 
destruction of the existing system ; and the brand-new 
Legislature is then called upon, in the very first days of 
its existence, to deal with the resulting chaos, with the 
agreeable consciousness that whatever it decides is liable 



138 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

to be vetoed by the Government at home. Arbitrariness 
and inconsistency could no further go, and Heaven alone 
knows what will be the end of it. My only hope is that the 
very desperateness of the situation may have a sobering 
effect on Transvaal politicians, and that, in face of the 
economic catastrophe with which the colony is threatened, 
a great many people may be disposed to sink differences 
on other points, and to agree on some arrangement which 
will at least tide them over the next year or two, and which, 
with a strong body of colonial opinion behind it, the British 
Government would hesitate to reject. 

It is with real relief that I turn from this distressing 
subject to the topics on which I came here to address you. 
They are, as I have said, topics very far removed from those 
which at present fill the political columns of all the news- 
papers. And for that reason, when first invited to come 
here, I strongly demurred, insisting that a speech from me 
could not in the present state of affairs be a particularly 
acceptable dish to set before the Unionists of Manchester, 
or, indeed, before any political assembly. But those who 
gave the invitation urged with equal strength and great 
persistence that I was quite wrong in that view, and that 
nobody expected me to make a regulation party speech. 
And so here I am ; and if at the end of it all you think you 
have made a bad bargain, I hope you will not visit it upon 
my innocent self, but will settle accounts with my friend, 
Lord Newton, and the other gentlemen who, with their 
eyes open, entered into that bargain on your behalf. 

And now, gentlemen, without more ado, let me say that 
I have come to break a lance in favour of that school of 
thought which holds that the maintenance and consolida- 
tion of what we call the British Empire should be the first 
and the highest of all political objects for every subject of 
the Crown. People who know more about such things 
than I do, tell me that it is not much use talking in that 
strain just now. ' Imperialism as a political cry,' so an 
expert electioneerer said to me not long ago, ' is as dead as 
Queen Anne.' Well, but to some of us it is not a cry, but 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 139 

a creed. To teU people in that frame of mind, that what 
they beheve to be vital truth is unpopular, may certainly 
depress them very much. It does depress me. But it 
is not likely to induce them to abjure it. On the contrary, 
the more what they believe to be truth is obscured the 
more they will be impelled to try and relume it, or, if they 
cannot do that, at least to show forth their own unshaken 
faith in it in its eclipse. And they will continue to hope 
that that eclipse is only temporary, especially if they 
think as I do, that it is due almost entirely to a mis- 
understanding. 

For what is it that we are told has turned aside the 
thoughts and affections of men from this dream, this mirage, 
or, to use an even more opprobrious epithet, this fetish of 
Imperialism ? It is the growth of interest in what is known 
as social reform. Social reform ! I take that to mean the 
movement, long since potent and no doubt of growing 
strength, which seeks to employ the resources and energies 
of the State in ameliorating the condition of the mass of 
the people, in raising their material, intellectual, moral 
standard of life, in giving even the humblest cause to 
rejoice in his birthright as a British citizen. And that, 
beyond all doubt or question, is a noble ideal. All of 
us must sympathise with it. I for one, not being and 
never having been a votary of laisser faire, not only sympa- 
thise with it, but believe that the action of the State can 
do a great deal to promote it. And I would rather see 
statesmen make many mistakes, as they wiU make mistakes, 
in their efforts to attain that end, than shrink from such 
efforts because of the pitfalls which beset them. Yes. 
By all means social reform. But where is the antagonism 
between it and Imperialism ? To my mind they are 
inseparable ideals, absolutely interdependent and com- 
plementary to one another. How are you going to sustain 
this vast fabric of the Empire ? No single class can 
sustain it. It needs the strength of the whole people. 
You must have soundness at the core — health, intelligence, 
industry ; and these cannot be general without a fair 



140 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

average standard of material well-being. Poverty, degrada- 
tion, physical degeneracy, — these will always be. But can 
any patriot, above all can any Imperialist, rest content 
with our present record in these respects ? If he cares for 
the Empire, he must care that the heart of the Empire 
should beat with a sounder and less feverish pulse. 

But, on the other hand, what is going to become of all 
your social well-being if the material prosperity which is 
essential to it, though not identical with it, is undermined ? 
And you cannot have prosperity without power, you, of 
all peoples, dependent for your very life, not on the products 
of these islands alone, but on a world-wide enterprise and 
commerce. This country must remain a great Power or 
she will become a poor country ; and those who in seeking, 
as they are most right to seek, social improvement are 
tempted to neglect national strength, are simply building 
their house upon the sand. ' These ought ye to have done, 
and not to leave the other undone.' But greatness is 
relative. Physical limitations alone forbid that these 
islands by themselves should retain the same relative 
importance among the vast empires of the modern world 
which they held in the days of smaller states — before the 
growth of Russia and the United States, before united 
Germany made those giant strides in prosperity and com- 
merce which have been the direct result of the development 
of her military and naval strength. These islands by them- 
selves cannot always remain a Power of the very first rank. 
But Greater Britain may remain such a Power, humanly 
speaking, for ever, and by so remaining, will ensure the 
safety and the prosperity of all the states composing it, 
which, again humanly speaking, nothing else can equally 
ensure. That surely is an object which in its magnitude, 
in its direct importance to the welfare of many genera- 
tions, millions upon millions of human beings, is out of all 
proportion to the ordinary objects of political endeavour. 

But it is not going to be attained easily. It is not going 
to come of itself. That at least is my firm conviction. 
And it is at this point that I enter upon ground which is, 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 141 

perhaps, more controversial than that which I have just 
been traversing. There are many who think, and I desire 
to speak with all respect of their opinion, that, while the 
continued union and co-operation of the various states 
of the Empire is no doubt highly desirable, constructive 
statesmanship can do nothing to promote it, that it is even 
dangerous to make the attempt, and that we ought to 
confine ourselves to the cultivation of friendly sentiments, 
to the development of intercourse, better means of com- 
munication, greater postal and telegraphic facilities, and 
other such non-political means of promoting intimacy and 
good understanding. And certainly these are all highly 
important, and, indeed, essential, to the end which we have 
in view. But then these are all things which we should 
desire, even in the case of foreign nations. And here we 
come to a vital difference of view. Is our attitude to the 
other states of the Empire to be just that which we ought 
to adopt towards any friendly foreign nation, or are we to 
aim at something much closer and more intimate ? For 
us Imperialists there can be no doubt about the answer. 
We are not content — ^this is the real point — that our rela- 
tions with the other states of the Empire, or their relations 
with one another, should gradually slide into the position 
which would satisfy us if they were friendly foreign nations. 
Their peoples are not foreigners to us, or to one another, but 
fellow-citizens ; and such we want them to remain. One 
throne, one flag, one citizenship. These are existing links 
of inestimable value. No friendship, no alliance even, with 
foreign countries, however strong, can give you anything 
to compare with them — any ties with roots so deep, with 
a vitality so enduring, or with results so precious. 

Just think what it means, for at least every white man 
of British birth, that he can be at home in every state of 
the Empire from the moment he sets foot in it, though his 
whole previous life may have been passed at the other end 
of the earth. He hears men speaking his own language, 
he breathes a social and moral atmosphere which is familiar 
to him — ^not the same, no doubt, as that of his old home, 



142 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

but yet a kindred atmosphere. More than that, he is 
entitled to full rights of citizenship from the very outset. 
He is on absolute terms of equality in this respect with the 
native born. The born Australian or New Zealander needs 
no naturalisation in Great Britain. The born Briton needs 
none in Australia or New Zealand ; whereas in any foreign 
country, however friendly, the Briton, the Australian, the 
New Zealander would all alike be aliens for years. I doubt 
whether people in general at all realise the greatness of 
this birthright, the scope and range, the variety and wealth 
of opportunities, which it affords to us to-day, and may, 
if we have the wisdom to preserve it, afford to those who 
come after us for centuries. Our common citizenship is 
one of those great familiar blessings which men are apt to 
realise only when they have lost them. 

I say, then, that we Imperialists are not content to slide 
into a position in which the several states of the Empire — 
I am, of course, now speaking of the self-governing states — 
will be to one another just like so many foreign nations 
however friendly. But we shall so slide, must so slide, in 
my opinion, unless a far-sighted statesmanship, availing 
itself of the still intensely strong, and, indeed, I hope grow- 
ing, desire for Imperial unity, can devise means to coun- 
teract the forces — great natural forces, not certainly in- 
superable, but very formidable — which make silently, 
constantly, for disintegration. Remember what the great 
self-governing colonies are to-day — either already are, or 
are fast becoming. They are no longer colonies in the 
ordinary sense of the term, but nations, with a life, a pride, 
a consciousness of their own, with separate, divergent, 
and in some cases indeed conflicting interests. It may be 
true — ^it is true — that they have a great common interest 
in keeping together, which transcends all the interests that 
tend to divide. But it needs exceptional imagination to 
grasp, and a resolute purpose to hold on to, that idea. I 
know there are many who think^ — I wish I could agree with 
them — that the tie of sentiment alone is sufficient to hold 
our Empire together. And certain it is that without that 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 143 

foundation to build upon you could do nothing. Without 
the sentiment of unity there can be no union ; but the 
sentiment alone does not constitute a practical and effec- 
tive union. It only makes one possible. It is, so to speak, 
the material, the indispensable material which statesmen 
may work up into the fabric which we want, that is to 
say, into a real political organism, which will be permanent 
and capable of bearing the strains to which from time to 
time it is certain to be exposed. But by itself it is just 
loose, uncompacted material. Why, even the United 
States of America, states with every tie of sentiment to 
draw them together, states, moreover, so much closer to, 
so much more obviously dependent on one another than 
the scattered communities of the British Empire, would 
never have been the great nation we see, or one nation at 
all, if statesmen had not been found of exceptional ability 
and power, who at the critical moment could ' take occa- 
sion by the hand,' and weld together what nature no doubt 
intended to be, but what it required human wisdom and 
energy to make, one body -politic. 

These are sobering reflections. But do not think that 
I am seeking to paint the future unduly black. It is a 
common trick of speakers, especially Opposition speakers, 
to conjure up a great impending national calamity and to 
suggest that unless something tremendous is done at once — 
the something generally being to turn out the Government — 
all is lost. The calamity I foresee is the gradual drifting 
apart of the scattered states of the Empire. But I do not 
suggest that any great rupture is imminent, or that one 
immediate exceptional step is necessary to prevent it. All 
I say is that we cannot afford to go on missing opportunities 
of strengthening old links or forging new ones, to arrest 
that process of dissolution of the whole, which is a natural 
though by no means unavoidable result of the independent 
development of the parts. We have lost far too many 
such opportunities already. But lest I should seem in 
saying that to adopt a superior or a lecturing tone, let me 
hasten to add that I have myself been a sinner in this 



144 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14. 

respect, and with very little excuse for sinning. I shall 
never forgiv^e myself for not suggesting — I do not know 
that the suggestion would have been adopted, or even 
welcomed, but at any rate it was my business to make it 
— ^that in the settlement of South African affairs after the 
war every important step taken by us should be taken in 
consultation with the other colonies. It was by their 
efforts as weU as ours that South Africa was kept within 
the Empire, and the subsequent policy was a clear case 
for Imperial co-operation. Not that I would for one 
moment suggest that the states of the Empire should take 
to meddling in one another's affairs. Non-interference in 
one another's domestic affairs is as fundamental a prin- 
ciple of Imperialism, as we understand it, as effective 
co-operation in our common affairs. The federated South 
Africa of the future ought, I suppose we are aU agreed, to 
be as free and unhampered as Canada, or Australia, or New 
Zealand. But while South Africa or any part of it was 
under temporary tutelage, the tutelage should have been 
reaUy Imperial and not merely British. The ward should 
have been the ward of the family, not merely of the Mother 
Country. 

That was an opportunity lost, and there have been other 
lost opportunities. But it will not do to go on losing them. 
Every chance missed makes it more difi&cult to seize the 
next one. And now, as it happens, there is a very important 
chance immediately ahead of us. A few months hence, 
the Prime Ministers of all the self-governing colonies will 
meet in conclave in this country. What use is going to 
be made of that momentous occasion ? Let us hope, to 
begin with that, to mark the real nature of the gathering, 
the Prime Minister of Great Britain will preside over its 
deliberations as primus inter pares. Such an innovation 
would imply no disparagement to the high office of Colonial 
Secretary. The Colonial Office exercises enormous powers 
and rules over a very large portion of the earth's surface. 
But the self-governing colonies are no longer, in anything 
but in name, under the Colonial Office, or, indeed, under 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 145 

any British authority except the King. They are, in fact, 
states of the Empire, and the United Kingdom itself is 
such a state, though no doubt stiU vastly the greatest 
and most important, bearing almost all the common 
burdens, and alone responsible for the great dependencies. 
Still, the difference between the United Kingdom and the 
other states, in the view of the Imperialism of the future, 
of the only Imperialism that can stand, ought to be regarded 
as a difference of stature and not of status — a difference 
which, however great to-day, must tend to disappear. 

This point of form, therefore, is important ; but, of 
course, the substance of the deliberations is far more so. 
In some respects the meeting is not held under the most 
favourable auspices. The great statesman who has done 
more than any man living to found the Imperialism of 
the future, to familiarise men both at home and in the 
Colonies with the idea of Imperial partnership, is tempor- 
arily withdrawn from the political arena. He will soon be 
back, as we aU hope, with renewed vigour, but even his 
temporary absence is an immense loss. He could not, in 
any case, under present conditions, have taken part in the 
actual Conference, but his active presence in political life 
before it and during it would, nevertheless, have exercised 
an invaluable influence in the direction of putting all its 
members upon their mettle. And then, again, there is 
the awkward fact that the very thing which the colonial 
representatives will be most anxious to discuss is just 
what the British representatives must feel the greatest 
embarrassment in discussing. We know what colonial 
Imperialists, almost without exception, regard as the most 
important practical step towards closer union. They 
believe in the principle of preferential trade, of the members 
of the Imperial family dealing with one another on terms 
more favourable than those accorded to strangers. At 
the last Conference in 1902, the colonial Premiers unani- 
mously supported a resolution in favour of a system of 
reciprocal preferential treatment of products and manu- 
factures within the Empire in respect of Customs duties. 

K 



146 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

Since then Canada has continued, and South Africa has 
accorded, preference to the Mother Country, and Austraha 
is trying to follow in the same direction. And in the 
absence of any response from the Mother Country, the 
Colonies are beginning to practise preference among them- 
selves. Under these circumstances it is mere trifling to 
question what is the prevalent desire of the Colonies in 
this matter. If it were not for reluctance on our part, 
reciprocal preferential treatment would rapidly become 
the rule throughout the Empire. 

It is Great Britain which in this particular blocks the 
way. But is it necessary that she should continue to block 
it as hopelessly as she at present does, even under existing 
conditions ? I dare say we shall, but I do not for a moment 
admit that we must. It is quite possible, as it seems to 
me, even for the present British Government to take up 
a less rigid attitude on this question than it has hitherto 
done. And surely, whatever may be our view about the 
principle of preference itself, we should all admit that it is 
at least unfortunate that Great Britain should be in this 
position of rejecting advances made to her by the Colonies, 
in what they believe to be our as well as their interest, and 
that no British Government would be justified in adopt- 
ing in such a matter an attitude more unsympathetic than 
that of the nation behind it. Granted that the Govern- 
ment would be justified in saying to the Colonies that the 
people of these islands, as at present advised, were not 
prepared to consider any further taxation of the neces- 
saries of life, or even any readjustment of such taxation 
of them as already exists, whatever compensating advan- 
tage they might receive for it. That would, in my opinion, 
be nothing more than the truth, however unfortunate. 
But if they were to draw from that fact, as many of their 
supporters seem to do, the inference that the people of 
these islands were averse to any idea of preferential 
trade relations between the different parts of the Empire, 
I absolutely deny that the British people have ever 
decided anything of the kind, or that, apart from the 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 147 

particular proposal of a tax on corn, they have ever even 
considered it. 

And it makes a world of difference, whether we appear 
to the Colonies as rejecting the brotherly principle of pre- 
ferential trade altogether, or simply as having rejected a 
particular form of tariff. They have surely made it per- 
fectly clear that they have no desire whatever to dictate 
to us about our tariff, no wish that we should make any 
sacrifice of our own interests merely in order to give them 
preference. They aU fix their tariffs in the first place to 
suit their own interests, and they expect us to do the same. 
But though they think of themselves first, they think of 
the other members of the family second, and of the rest 
of the world third. And if we are indeed a family, is not 
that simply natural and right ? And when have the 
people of this country rejected that point of view ? 

It may be said, ' What practical difference does it make, 
whether we reject it or not, since we have no tariff which 
would enable us to differentiate in favour of colonial imports, 
even if we wanted to ? ' Well, in the first place, that is 
not quite true. There are articles, even in our present 
restricted list of dutiable imports, on which we might dis- 
criminate in favour of the Colonies. The immediate 
practical consequences would be slight, but the effect on 
the Colonies and on their future attitude towards us in the 
matter would be momentous. And then, again, is there 
any man who is hardy enough to say that, even if prefer- 
ential trade did not enter into the question at all, our 
present list of dutiable imports is to be regarded as immut- 
able, eternal ? Have we, indeed, attained the highest 
plane of human wisdom in this respect ? Some of us may 
think so, but a good many of us do not. And in any case, 
the Colonies do not think so. They believe that in our 
own interest we are certain in the course of time to modify 
our commercial policy and to modify it in a manner which 
would leave far more scope for the application of the prin- 
ciple of preferential trade than the present system does. 
And, remember, that principle can find expression in other 



148 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

things besides tariffs. The question is, whether we have any 
sympathy with the principle at all or not. If all we say 
to the Colonies now, is simply that we do not see our way 
at present to reciprocal arrangements, that it would cause too 
great an upset of our own trade — mind you, I do not agree 
with all this ; I am only trying to put myself into the posi- 
tion of a free importer who yet does not want to douche 
the Colonies with the coldest of cold water — if we leave the 
door open for further consideration, such an answer might 
no doubt be discouraging, but I do not believe for a moment 
that it would deter the Colonies from continuing to give a 
preference to British goods. They would still have confi- 
dence in the future, and would be wise to have it. But if, 
on the other hand, we say to them : — ' Go your way. We 
love you very much, but do not suppose that we will ever 
dream of having closer relations with you than with other 
people. We object in principle to all such sordid bonds ' — 
if we say that, we may kill the preferential trade move- 
ment in the Colonies as far as we are concerned, and a 
great deal else with it. And, more than that, we shall not 
have long to wait before other nations will approach them 
and try to arrange for the reciprocal advantages which we 
have rejected. But once let foreign goods be introduced 
into a British colony on terms more favourable than British 
goods of the same kind, and you get a state of things so 
unnatural, so conducive to estrangement if not to friction, 
that it makes closer union in other respects infinitely more 
difficult and probably impossible. I do not say that other 
bonds of Empire might not for a time resist even that 
strain, but it would be a fatal blunder to expose them to it. 
And now, passing from the trade question, about which 
our attitude at the Conference may be more or less dis- 
couraging, but cannot in any case give the Colonies much 
satisfaction, may we venture to hope that it is not going 
to be the same story about all the topics of discussion ? 
* There is some soul of goodness in things evil,' and the 
very fact that our present Ministry are bound to be more 
or less of a wet blanket to colonial aspirations, with regard 



I906] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 149 

to preference, must surely make them all the keener to 
arrive at some practical results in other directions. They 
cannot wish the Conference altogether to fail, to be pro- 
ductive of nothing more than platitudes and evening 
parties. They must realise how poor a figure they would 
cut, how deep a disappointment such a result would be to 
at least a great majority of the nation. 

And now I have trespassed so long upon your patience 
this evening, that I really dare not go in detail into those 
other matters, some of them of far-reaching importance, 
which the Conference will have to discuss. But there is one 
question standing out with peculiar prominence, to which 
in conclusion I should like very briefly to call your atten- 
tion. It is the question of the future of the Colonial Con- 
ference itself. The Conference, while it lasts, is an extra- 
ordinarily important assembly. Consisting as it does of 
representative members, usually the heads, of the execu- 
tives of all the self-governing states of the Empire, deriving 
their power directly from the popular will, it may be said 
that, while it sits, the people of the Empire are themselves 
in conclave. During that brief period we actually have 
what our loosely knit Imperial system so sorely needs, a 
body representative of all the autonomous communities 
which own allegiance to the Crown. The so-called Imperial 
Parliament, elected only by the people of these islands, is 
not such a body. Our own Ministry, responsible only 
to that Parliament, is not such a body. But the Confer- 
ence is. No doubt it is only a consultative body, though 
from its composition it is a peculiarly weighty one. But 
people must consult together before they can be expected 
to act together. It would be an immense step in advance 
if we could only establish the regular practice of common 
consultation, with regard to aU matters of common interest, 
and I include among matters of common interest any 
question arising between one state of the Empire and a 
foreign state. 

But the Conference only sits for a brief period at long 
intervals. During all the intervening time, the peoples 



150 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14. 

of the Empire have no common organ. And in the absence 
of such an organ, matters of common interest are neglected, 
or casually and fragmentarily dealt with. And when a 
question arises between a colony and a foreign state, 
there is no means of taking the general sense of the Empire 
upon it. There is not even any regular system for dealing 
with it in conjunction with the colony directly affected. 
We have had an extraordinary instance of this want of touch 
in the recent case of Newfoundland. In such a case, under 
present circumstances, the British Government has just 
to do the best it can, consulting whom it pleases, as it 
pleases. That is a very unsatisfactory position. No 
doubt there is this amount of justification for it, that Great 
Britain has to bear the whole brunt of any difficulties that 
might arise with the foreign Power. But then that itself 
is a result of our present happy-go-lucky system. Once 
establish the principle of common deliberation about 
external affairs, or even only about external affairs directly 
affecting one or more of the Colonies, and you are bound 
to face the problem of what I may call mutual insurance. 
The Colonies, I take it, are becoming alive to the duty of 
developing their means of self-defence. That is, in the 
long run, a much better plan than offering money contri- 
butions to the mother country, however welcome these 
may be in the absence of anything better. But, without 
a common understanding, or any arrangement for mutual 
help, colonial defence forces may become a burden out of 
all proportion to their utility. The whole matter needs 
to be thoroughly and systematically thought out, and so 
you come round again to the primary need — that of con- 
stantly taking counsel together. 

Look at it from any point of view, and the duty of 
common consultation appears to grow more and more 
imperative. And the problem is, how the opportunity 
for such consultation, which the Conference affords, can 
be kept alive when the Conference is not sitting. The late 
Colonial Secretary made a suggestion how that might to 
some extent be done. His suggestion was that there should 



i9o6] THE IMPERIALIST CREED 151 

be a permanent Commission springing out of the Confer- 
ence, a Commission representative of all the states of the 
Empire, which, in the intervals between the meetings of 
the Conference, should examine and report on any ques- 
tions of common interest, with a view to their ultimate 
decision by the Conference itself. It was to be a sort of 
Intelligence Department for the civil business of the Empire. 
Now that by itself would not be a very momentous step, 
but it would be a step entirely in the right direction. And, 
on the whole, the suggestion was cordially welcomed by 
the self-governing colonies. Newfoundland and Canada, 
indeed, showed some hesitation about adopting it. But 
the objections of Newfoundland were clearly based on a 
misunderstanding, and the Government of Canada, though 
not prepared to commit itself without further considera- 
tion, did not show any hostility to the proposal. The 
impression which its answer gives is that it has an open 
mind on the subject. And I do not think that the Govern- 
ment of Canada, which in the question of preferential 
trade has led the way, would wish to be a drag on the 
coach with regard to any proposal making for Imperial 
co-operation, if it were satisfied that the other self-govern- 
ing colonies approved it. Certainly I do not believe that 
that would be the desire of the Canadian people. 

If I have dwelt at length upon the approaching Conference, 
it is because of the intense anxiety which aU Imperialists 
must feel, that one of these great, rarely occurring, oppor- 
tunities should be utilised to the fuU. Unless the public, 
both here and in the Colonies, are aroused to a vivid interest 
in the subject, timidity and vis inertice may prevail. The 
danger besetting the cause of Imperial unity is not so much 
that men are, in the abstract, hostile to the idea ; but it 
is apt to appear something academic, distant, unreal, the 
very reverse of what in truth it is, a matter of direct per- 
sonal importance to the humblest citizen. I cannot flatter 
myself that anything I have said to-night will do much 
to bring home the conviction of this fact to those who|;do 
not already feel it. But I have at least tried to state the 



152 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

case simply, honestly, without personal or party animus, 
without rhetorical artifice, and without exaggeration. 
Empire and Imperialism are words which lend themselves 
to much misuse. It is only when stripped of tawdry 
accessories that the ideas which they imperfectly express 
can be seen in their real greatness. Our object is not 
domination or aggrandisement. It is consolidation and 
security. We envy and antagonise no other nation. But 
we wish the kindred peoples under the British flag to remain 
one united family for ever. And we believe that it is only 
by such union that they can attain their highest individual 
development, and exercise a decisive influence for peace, 
and for the maintenance of that type of civilisation which 
they aU have in common, in the future history of the 
human race. 

WOLVERHAMPTON.— December 17, 1906 

A political Ishmaelite 

[At this time Mr. L. S, Amery, M.P. — ^since 1911 — for South Birmingham, 
was prospective candidate for East Wolverhampton, and it was at his 
instance that Lord Milner visited Wolverhampton and delivered the 
following address to a Unionist audience] : — 

I AM going to do a bold thing. I am not going to address 
you to-night about any of those subjects on which you are 
probably expecting me to address you — the religious con- 
troversy with regard to our schools, plural voting, trade 
disputes, the position of the House of Lords. Not that I 
do not recognise their importance. But there are plenty 
of people to speak about them, and people far more com- 
petent than I am. The great statesmen of the day are 
necessarily absorbed in those questions, which hold the 
field for the time being in political life, and between them 
they are more than able to put every possible point of view 
before the public. I think it is more useful for an out- 
sider like myself — an old public servant and deeply interested 
in public affairs, but with no pretensions to be a political 
leader — ^to devote himself to other matters, also important, 
but which for the moment are, more or less, in the back- 



i9o6] A POLITICAL ISHMAELITE 153 

ground. They are questions which at aU times are worthy 
of some share of your attention, and perhaps they can be 
most profitably considered when they are not among the 
immediate burning topics of party controversy. 

But you may perhaps be inchned to say to me, ' That 
is all very well. But from what point of view are you 
approaching them ? What are you ? Show us your 
colours.' Well, gentlemen, I am a free lance, a sort of 
political Ishmaelite, who has found hospitality in the 
Unionist camp. It is certain that I could not have found 
it in any other. Not that I am not good friends with many 
Liberals, and even in agreement with them on some political 
questions. But I am simply anathema to a large section 
of the party in power, which indeed seems to be the dominant 
section. True, they are not altogether agreed among 
themselves. Some are Individualists and some are 
Socialists, some are rehgious men of a very militant type, 
and some indifferent to every form of religion. But there 
is one point which they almost aU have in common, and 
that is a certain suspicion — ^perhaps it would be too much 
to say dislike — of the Empire, because they connect it 
with the idea of war, and the necessity of maintaining an 
army and navy, and the training of our youth to the use 
of arms, which, as some of them have recently informed 
us, develops ' the animal instincts.' For my own part, I 
should have thought that nothing developed those instincts 
in our growing youth so much as loafing, and nothing 
subdued them so much as hard and continuous exercise 
and moral discipline. But that by the way. Certainly 
there is no blinking the fact that, if you have an Empire, 
you may have to fight for it ; and that, as you may have 
to fight, you had better know how to ; and if you think 
that that is bad for you, you had better not set too much 
store by the Empire, or for the matter of that even by 
' Little England,' which might need a lot of fighting for 
without the Empire, but go in frankly for internationalism 
at once. Now that is not my point of view at all. Indeed, 
I fear that to those who think with Lord Courtney that 
* the devil was the arch-Imperialist,' I can only appear as 



154 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

a child of the devil. And so you see that, unless the 
Unionist party were good enough to shelter so dangerous 
a character, I should be an outcast altogether. But the 
last thing I should dream of doing would be to repay their 
hospitahty by attempting to commit them to all my 
eccentric opinions. I know that I am a hopeless detri- 
mental from the party point of view. By all means con- 
tinue to be kind to me. Charity is good for the soul. And 
there can be no harm done by listening to me from time 
to time. I have had some experience, and I have no axe 
to grind whatsoever. But it is quite a different thing to 
ask you to adopt my views as part of a party gospel. I 
make no claims of that kind. Individually they may, I 
hope, commend themselves to some, and indeed to many, 
Unionists, and perhaps not only to Unionists. But collec- 
tively they would give any party manager a fit. 

For just think of it ! Not only am I an Imperialist of 
the deepest dye — and Imperialism, you know, is out of 
fashion — but I actually believe in universal military train- 
ing. I have been an accomplice of Lord Roberts in his 
attempt to persuade his countrymen not to rely entirely upon 
paying a small portion of their number to fight for the rest, 
but to estabhsh our national security upon a broader basis, 
and one, if I may say it without offence, more compatible 
with self-respect. I agree with all that Mr. Haldane and 
Lord Rosebery have recently said, and said much better 
than I can, about ' a nation in arms,' and the duty of every 
man to be ready to defend his country. But I go one step 
further than they do. I cannot for the life of me see, if 
this reaUy is the duty of every man and a duty of supreme 
importance to the State, why the performance of that 
duty should be left quite optional, when the discharge of 
so many minor public duties is not left so, without any 
reasonable creature making a grievance of that fact. Either 
this great second line of defence, this national reservoir 
of men, is a vital public necessity, or it is not. If it is not, 
then why make aU this enormous fuss about it and spend 
so much money upon a luxury ? If it is, how extraordinary 
to leave it to chance, to individual preference or conveni- 



i9o6] A POLITICAL ISHMAELITE 155 

ence, to decide whether you get it or not ? A good deal of 
prejudice is always excited on this subject, by the assump- 
tion that those who think as I do want to introduce the 
German military system. But, judging from myself, they 
want nothing of the kind. All the conditions are radically 
different in the two countries. Indeed, I do not believe 
in slavishly following any foreign model. We have got 
to make our own model, to develop on our own national 
lines. We are not going to throw our Army, Militia, 
Yeomanry, Volunteers upon the scrap-heap. Without 
entering upon military details, for which I am not com- 
petent, I should say simplify, consolidate, but do not 
destroy. But, above all, have one period of military train- 
ing for men of all classes, on the threshold of manhood, 
which should be regarded as part of the education of the 
citizen, and would give you the material alike for your 
small professional army, which would still be voluntarily 
recruited, and for that great National Reserve, however 
organised, on the necessity of which every expert, as far 
as I know, is agreed. 

Of course, something more is wanted than the agree- 
ment of experts. The body of the nation must be convinced. 
Without a belief in its necessity they would never face an 
undertaking so large and which looks so irksome. But 
to admit that, is not to admit that it really is the burden and 
the drawback which it is commonly represented to be. I 
believe it to be a blessing in disguise. Not a few of us have 
seen with their bodily eyes what it has done for some foreign 
nations. And no nation requires it more than one living so 
largely in crowded industrial centres as ours. You may say 
physical training would do all that is required. But mere 
physical training, directed to no particular object, is difficult 
and almost impossible to make general and thorough. And 
there is a great deal more in this proposal than mere bodily 
exercise. The ' nation in arms ' is a great school of patriot- 
ism. And military training is not a training wholly or 
mainly of the body. It develops moral qualities in the 
individual which are of the highest value to him all his life, 
of value to him as a worker and of value to him as a citizen. 



156 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

I know some people think that it would make us more 
prone to go to war. Personally I hold the exactly opposite 
opinion. Professional soldiers may sometimes wish for 
war. And an unmilitary mob does often clamour for it, 
from an unhealthy love of excitement, as for some gladia- 
torial show. They would feel very differently if they had 
themselves to be the gladiators. Wars among civilised 
nations are happily becoming, and likely to become, of 
rarer and rarer occurrence. And one of the reasons for 
this is, that the system of what may be called national 
militias has to so large an extent taken the place of the 
old professional armies. In a democratic State having a 
national militia, the men who decide upon a war are the 
same men who, or whose children, have got to wage it. 
They will think twice before they take the plunge. But 
other nations also will think twice before they quarrel with 
them. Our fellow-citizens in other parts of the Empire, 
and especially Australia, perhaps the most democratic of 
British countries, seem to be realising these facts. I see 
that a ' citizen defence force ' forms one of the planks in 
the platform of the Australian Labour Party. And that 
seems a logical and consistent development of democratic 
principles. 

And now, to go on with the list of my heresies, let me say 
that I am a Tariff Reformer, and one of a somewhat pro- 
nounced type. At the same time I feel that this is a con- 
troversy which calls for a great deal of mutual forbearance 
from those who differ about it but are otherwise politically 
agreed. Take my own case. For many years of my life I 
held what is known as the Cobdenite doctrine in all its 
rigidity. Experience of public finance, in more countries 
than one, gradually detached me from it, and had so detached 
me some time before this question became a burning one 
in politics. But I am not the least surprised that many 
of my friends, especially those who have not had a similar 
experience, still cling to the old faith which we once held 
in common. I decline to quarrel with them. I only wish 
they would not quarrel with me, or be so very positive. 



i9o6] A POLITICAL ISHMAELITE 157 

The effect of a duty on imported goods in all its ramifica- 
tions is one of the most complicated intellectual problems 
that I know of. If I find any man dogmatising about it 
with absolute omniscience, I think him a quack. And I 
do not want to dogmatise too much myself. But I may be 
permitted, very briefly, to put before you what, from a 
practical point of view, seems a reasonable plan, without 
entering into the abstruse economic arguments in favour 
of it, which would take me hours. 

I believe that duties on imported goods are a sound, as 
they are an almost universal, way of raising revenue. But 
if you have a tariff at all it should, to start with, be a 
moderate aU-round one. Exemption should be, not the 
rule, but the exception. Where a good case can be made 
out for exemption, by all means accord it. There clearly 
is such a case, as it seems to me, for certain large classes 
of raw material. But, as a rule, I should be disposed to 
scrutinise very closely any demands for exemption. And, 
on the other hand, I should look askance at proposals to 
put reaUy high rates on particular articles, rates having 
a deliberately protective or penal character. Here, again, 
no doubt a case can be made out. If a home industry is 
being crushed by competition which is really unfair, why 
should it seem so wicked to protect it ? You say, ' Oh, 
but we get the goods cheaper.' But we have no right to 
profit by an injustice done to one class of producers, nor 
do we in the long run any of us profit by permitting it. 
Stolen goods are also cheap. Pirated books are cheap. 
Goods made in violation of a patent are cheap. The setting 
up of cheapness as the sole and final test is an anarchic 
principle. 

But, as I have said, it needs a very strong case indeed, 
the unfairness must be very clear, its evil consequences 
must be very indisputable, before you sanction an excep* 
tional rate for purposes of protection. No doubt any 
all-round tariff, however moderate, has a certain protective 
tendency ; but that is a different matter. It has a general 
tendency to benefit all producer-consumers at the expense 



158 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17. 

of consumers who are not also producers. And it has a 
tendency to encourage the investment of capital at home 
instead of abroad, and to increase the output and keep 
up the spirits of home industry. But unless the thing is 
pushed too far, both these tendencies seem to me good. 

Our present tariff, of course, is based on quite opposite 
principles. It is confined to very few articles. But on 
these articles it places duties, which are always heavy and 
sometimes perfectly enormous, as in the case of tobacco, 
against which it rages with peculiar fury. I must say I 
have a great sympathy with poor tobacco. I can see the 
reasons for tremendous duties on spirits, but not for this 
ferocious attack upon the innocent pipe. And at the 
same time this system lets off innumerable articles, many 
of them pure luxuries, which could perfectly well pay a 
moderate duty. The result is a most fantastic and unequal 
distribution of the burden, a distribution which is all in 
favour of the well-to-do. What distinguishes the con- 
sumption of a rich man from that of his poorer neighbours ? 
Not so much the larger amount of certain articles of universal 
consumption that he consumes (he cannot drink so much 
more tea, or smoke so much more tobacco, however hard 
he tries), but the vastly greater range and variety of the 
articles which he consumes at all. By raising almost all 
our Customs revenue from a very few articles of universal 
consumption, which we tax enormously, rich and poor are 
made to contribute in nearly equal amounts, despite the 
great disparity of their resources. It is really a sort of 
graduation against the less well-to-do. A much lighter 
duty spread over a much larger number of articles would 
obviously be much fairer between rich and poor. All 
would still contribute, as all ought to contribute, but much 
more nearly in proportion to their means. 

Indeed, it is often used as an argument for the introduc- 
tion of novel, dubious, and oppressive taxes, aimed directly 
at the rich, that indirect taxation at present operates so 
unfairly. But would it not be much simpler to make it 
operate less unfairly ? Why create a second inequality in 



I906] A POLITICAL ISHMAELITE 159 

order to perpetuate the present one ? The reason, of 
course, is that our present tariff is dominated, from start 
to finish, by one idea, and one idea only, and that is, that 
it is wicked to do anything which could by any possibility, 
even indirectly, give an advantage to the home producer. 
It is wicked to tax anything made by a foreigner unless 
you can also tax the same article made by an Englishman, 
Irishman, or Scotsman. If that is impracticable, then 
the tax on the foreign article, however reasonable in itself, 
must be abandoned. I say that is pedantry. It is no use 
belabouring me with theoretical arguments. The thing is 
irrational, and I do not believe it can permanently stand. 

And such a change of policy as I have outlined would 
have two further consequences, both of momentous import- 
ance. In the first place, it would enable us to enter into 
a commercial union with other parts of the Empire, by 
giving them, as some of them have given us, not exemption 
from duties, but a lower rate. I do not say that a uniform 
lower rate exhausts the possibilities of preferential trade 
within the Empire, but at any rate it is a good basis to 
start from. And it embodies the sound principle that we 
are a nation within a nation, and that, while we are entitled 
to think first of ourselves, we should think next of our 
feUow-citizens across the seas, and only after them of 
foreign nations. And in the next place, a moderate general 
tariff would give us, almost insensibly, an enormous revenue, 
and I do not know how else you are going to get that on 
present lines. Some people think they are going to do 
wonders by a graduated income-tax. I can tell them that, 
however attractive it may be for purposes of demagogy, a 
graduated income-tax will, from the revenue point of view, 
prove a great disappointment. It is not the graduation 
I object to. But you already have a graduated and pretty 
steeply graduated death duty, and, whatever may be the 
objections to that tax, it does at least bring in a lot of 
money. But a graduated income-tax is only a new and 
less convenient method of drawing from the same source. 
It is not going to yield anything like the same sum, and it 



160 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

is going to be much more expensive, inquisitorial, and 
vexatious. Realised wealth is not the inexhaustible milch 
cow that some people think. 

Well, then, what remains ? Economy ? No doubt 
there is room — there always is — for saving on our public 
services. But even if you reduce waste to a minimum, 
the resultant saving will be all required for new needs. 
No doubt there is one kind of economy which might be, 
and perhaps is, being practised which would afford sub- 
stantial relief to the Treasury — for a time — though we 
should have to pay heavily for it afterwards. I mean 
economy achieved by cutting down our defensive forces. 
You may have seen that latterly there has been some very 
strong criticism from very competent quarters of what is 
called the ' reorganisation ' of the Navy. The burden of 
the charge is that the Government, while it claims to be 
saving money on the Navy by a better distribution of 
strength, is in reality saving it, or most of it, by the very 
simple device of reducing the fighting efficiency of the 
Fleet. Now I am not prepared to say that that is so. 
The Admiralty may have a good answer to its critics. 
But there certainly is a very strong and nasty-looking 
prima facie case which has got to be answered. And of 
this I am very sure, that, if the public were once convinced 
that the fighting strength of the Navy was being reduced, 
and, worse still, reduced in what one can only call a clan- 
destine way, there would be a bigger storm than the advo- 
cates of economy at all hazards have any idea of. 

On the whole, I think we had better make up our minds 
that there is nothing to be saved — nothing worth speaking 
of — on our defensive forces, though no doubt there is a 
good deal, especially in the case of the Army, which can be 
spent to better purpose than has been the case in the past. 
And, on the other hand, you have the constant growth of 
civil expenditure. There is simply no end to the schemes 
for improving the lot of the mass of the people by the 
expenditure of public money. No doubt many of them 
are very bad. But they are not all bad. For my own 



i9o6] A POLITICAL ISHMAELITE 161 

part, I am unable to join in the hue and cry against Socialism. 
That there is an odious form of Socialism I admit, a Socialism 
which attacks wealth simply because it is wealth, and lives 
on the cultivation of class hatred. But that is not the 
whole story, most assuredly not. There is a nobler Social- 
ism, which so far from springing from * envy, hatred, and all 
uncharitableness,' is born of genuine sympathy and a lofty 
and wise conception of what is meant by national life. It 
realises the fact that we are not merely so many millions 
of individuals, each struggling for himself, with the State 
to act as policeman, but literally one body -politic ; that the 
different classes and sections of the community are members 
of that body, and that when one member suffers all the 
members suffer. From this point of view the attempt to 
raise the weU-being and efficiency of the more backward of 
our people — for this is what it all comes to — is not philan- 
thropy : it is business. I dare say many of the ways in 
which enthusiasts try to achieve this end are mistaken and 
even ludicrous. I have heard of one progressive munici- 
pality in which they keep up billiard tables out of the rates. 
But, while trying to curb the excesses and absurdities of 
this spirit of social improvement, do not let us decry the 
spirit itself. There are a great many things, essential to 
the health and prosperity of the mass of the people, which 
public action, national or municipal, can alone secure, and 
they all mean money. No one can believe, for instance, 
that we have got to the end of our expenditure on educa- 
tion. And now that people's ideas of what education 
ought to be have become so much more enlightened, it is 
well that this should be the case. As long as we do not 
try merely to cram the memory, but to develop the power 
of observation and thought, to train body and mind 
together, and to direct work at school towards subsequent 
usefulness in life — I say as long as education is based on 
enlightened principles, we ought not to bewail the cost. 
And the same is true, of course, of anything that makes 
for the national health. 
There are other forms of expenditure which are much 



162 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 9, 

more questionable ._ Take such a thing, for instance, as 
old age pensions. They may be a necessity, but they are 
a deplorable necessity. The case for them rests on the 
fact that, owing to low wages and irregular employment, 
so many people really are unable to make provision for 
old age. I believe that is true ; and that being true, it 
is not only more humane, it is from the national point of 
view more poHtic, not to condemn innocent poverty to 
the workhouse. But every wise man would rather strike 
at the causes of low wages and irregular employment than 
merely mitigate its effects. The necessity of old age 
pensions is a confession of national failure. It is due, in 
part at least, in great part, to the immense output of un- 
skilled labour — ^boys and girls thrown upon the world to 
pick up a few shillings by casual work, without any special 
training or aptitude for anything. And is it not due also 
in great part to the want of protection — in the broadest 
sense of the word — of great national industries ? I am 
not referring simply to protection by duties, though that 
may in some instances be necessary. The point is, that 
we should look at industry in a national spirit which aims 
at the maximum of production and employment, not in 
the purely commercial spirit which thinks of nothing but 
cheapness. The decline of any great industry within 
these islands is a national loss. It may in some cases be 
inevitable, but it ought never to be contemplated with 
indifference. It is surely better to pay a little more for 
your goods, and keep thousands of people in productive 
work, than to pay a little less for your goods, and have 
ultimately to devote what you have saved in that way to 
the relief of pauperism due to the loss of employment. I 
know the argument that, if you save money by the cheapen- 
ing of one class of goods, that means that you have more 
money to spend on something else, and so there will be 
new industries and new employment. But will the new 
necessarily be as desirable as the old, and will the new 
necessarily be in this country ? I am afraid I am not 
large-minded enough to be interested in the total wealth 



i9o6] SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAY MISSION 163 

of the world — even if I were sure, which I am not, that 
universal, unregulated competition was going to produce 
the greatest total wealth. My ideal is to see the greatest 
number of people living healthy and independent lives by 
means of productive work in our own country. And here 
indeed I touch the root of all these, as they may seem to 
you, disjointed and, as they certainly are in some respects, 
unfashionable opinions. In truth, whether right or wrong, 
they all hang together. I am not an individualist and I 
am not a cosmopolitan. The conception which haunts 
me is the conception of the people of these islands as a great 
family, bound by indissoluble ties to kindred families in 
other parts of the world, and, within its own borders, 
striving after all that makes for productive power, for 
social harmony, and, as a result of these and as the 
necessary complement and shield of these, for its strength 
as a nation among the nations of the earth. 

CHURCH HOUSE, WESTMINSTER.— March 9, 1907 

South African Railway Mission 
[In presiding at the annual meeting of the South African Church Rail- 
way Mission.] 

It is always a pleasure as well as a duty to me to do any- 
thing I can for South Africa. If there is one thing about 
which all who know South Africa are agreed, it is the 
importance of railways in the life of that country. In that 
land of immense distances and thinly scattered popula- 
tion, where centres of industry, absolutely dependent 
on each other, are often separated by hundreds of miles 
of almost wilderness, a railway is the artery of civilised 
life, not only sustaining it, but creating it, and often making 
the settlement which it is ultimately to serve. The rail- 
way men are the pioneers of European settlement. They 
are mostly of our own race, and very good specimens of 
the race too. Many forms of British enterprise in South 
Africa are, if not objects of hostility, subjects of contro- 
versy — ^railway development is not one of these. Every- 
where the railwaymen are cordially welcomed. They 



164 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 15, 

are doing a very great work for their country, and it is 
done often under arduous conditions. I am not thinking 
so much of health, though certain parts of the country are 
very unhealthy ; what they suffer from most, at least on the 
new and pioneer lines, is the loneliness and isolation. They 
are cut off to a great extent from intercourse with their 
fellow-countrymen and even with each other, and from 
the benefits of that civilisation which it is their duty to 
advance. And I maintain that all interested in South 
Africa are bound to repay the railway workers for what 
they are doing by giving them among other blessings of 
civilisation, everyday matters to us, the influence of 
religious intercourse and communion. Now that is the 
object of the Railway Mission ; and so far as my experi- 
ence goes, that duty is admirably discharged. The hard 
work which men and women are doing in connection with 
the Mission, often amid discomfort and privation, is admir- 
ably done. Hard-working, devoted, manly and sensible, 
are the representatives of that Mission ; cordial is the 
welcome given them wherever they go. But the work is 
necessarily expensive. The governments of the Colonies 
do as much for it as can reasonably be expected. In the 
main, the work is supported by voluntary effort. Every 
year, hundreds of miles are added to the South African 
railway, and the Railway Mission's work ought to be 
extended at least as fast, and I hope that this meeting 
will enable the Mission to respond to the ever-growing need. 

KENSINGTON TOWN HALL.— Maech 15, 1907 

National Service 
[At a meeting of the Kensington brancli of the National Service League.] 

I DO not pretend to be a military expert. My adhesion to 
the principles of the National Service League is based on 
a few very simple considerations of a broad political and 
social order. I do not greatly care whether the Blue 
Water School or the critics of the Blue Water School get 
the best of the argument. Personally, I am inclined to 



1907] NATIONAL SERVICE 165 

think that, at the present time at any rate, there is not 
much danger of an invasion of this country. I am not 
such an alarmist as — what shaU I say ? — the editor of the 
National Review. But it is reaUy appalling to think what 
even a trifling invasion, even a landing of ten thousand 
or five thousand men in this country in our present state 
of military unpreparedness would mean — the panic which 
it would cause, the absolute confusion into which every- 
thing would be thrown, the disorganisation of credit, the 
dislocation of all industry, which might well result in 
causing a loss in a few weeks far transcending the cost of 
general military training for many years. But a nation 
conscious of its power of defending itself could afford to 
treat such an invasion almost with contempt. My con- 
tention is, that we cannot stake our existence upon the 
theory — for after all it is nothing more than a theory — 
that invasion is absolutely and for aU time impossible. 
One of the greatest of military thinkers has said that there 
is nothing certain about war except that it will be full of 
surprises. Now, if it is impossible even for the greatest 
strategist to foresee the course of a particular war, how 
much more difficult, how hopeless must it be to attempt 
to forecast aU the issues of an unknown future. No man 
can tell to what dangers we may be exposed five years 
hence — ^ten years hence ; but it stands to reason, as Mr. 
Maxse has said, that, in the eternal struggle for existence 
between nations, the nation which is trained to the use 
of arms must in the long run prevail over the nation which 
is not ; the nation which refuses to be trained must in 
the long run lose ground in the midst of trained nations. 
It has been well compared to an egg in a basket of stones. 
Shake the basket, and the stones may roU this way or that 
way, but the egg is sure to be broken. The fundamental 
principle of the National Service League is independent 
of particular prophecies. It is independent of the inter- 
national position at any given date. It is of universal 
validity in the present condition of mankind. All that it 
maintains is, that you must be far stronger and safer, less 



166 " SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 15, 

likely, much less likely, to be attacked not only by weak 
peoples but by strong peoples, more certain if attacked 
to survive the crisis, if you know how to fight than if you 
do not. We are told that in preaching this doctrine we 
take no account of the sea or of the immense power of the 
British Navy. But it is a complete error to suppose that 
the advocates of universal military training either ignore 
the supreme importance of the Navy, or undervalue the 
greatness of that force, of which we are all proud. The 
Navy has something else to do besides watching the shores 
of these islands. The Navy, in case of war, has got to 
strike with all its powers at the decisive point, which may 
be distant. We want to be able to say to our sailors, 
' Go, where you are wanted ; go, all of you, destroy the 
enemy's fleet ; we landsmen can take care that, while you 
are looking after your proper business, no invader shall 
set his foot on the shores of this country without having 
cause to regret it.' There is another point. Granted 
that invasion is altogether and for ever impossible — the 
fate of this Empire may be decided without invasion. It 
may be decided on the mainland of Europe, almost within 
sight of our shores. It may be decided on the frontier of 
India or in other distant lands. How should we men of 
England feel if our small Regular Army were being over- 
whelmed on some distant frontier by a force of immensely 
superior numbers, and if hundreds of thousands of able- 
bodied men in this country had to look on in impotence, 
in spite of the fact that we had more than enough trans- 
ports to convey twenty divisions to their assistance. Would 
the men of England be willing to go ? Yes, thousands of 
them. The national spirit is not dead. The Boer War 
proved that. But would they be of use when they arrived ? 
For want of previous training and organisation many of 
them would not. The Boer War proved that also. You 
cannot improvise an army, and you must remember that 
the Boer War was small compared to the wars which we 
may have to wage. We are told that ours is a counsel of 
perfection, that we ask for something beyond the power 



19073 NATIONAL SERVICE 167 

and endurance of this nation, and that we cannot expect 
to maintain both a navy as great as the British Navy, and 
an army as great as the German Army. But who pro- 
poses that we should maintain an army like the German 
Army — more than 400,000 perfectly trained soldiers 
always ready, and more than 1,000,000 mobilisable in 
a few weeks ? We should be content, and far more than 
content, if the military strength of this country stood 
in the same proportion to the military strength of Germany, 
as the German Navy stands to the British Navy. No 
one who knows the facts believes that this is at present 
the case. The naval needs of Germany are less than our 
naval needs. Our military needs are less than the military 
needs of Germany, though they are far greater, alas ! than 
our present military capacity. We should have every 
reason to be satisfied if, taking Army and Navy together, 
we compared favourably in defensive power with any of 
our rivals. Germany requires a great army always ready. 
What we require is a great, though not an equally great, 
reservoir of trained men upon which we could draw, though 
not so instantly or speedily. But we have got nothing 
of the kind, and that seems to be the view of the present 
War Minister. An excellent leaflet, indeed a whole series 
of pamphlets for the purpose of the National Service 
League, could be cuUed from the speeches of Mr. Haldane. 
He recognises the necessity of a reservoir of men. He 
believes in a second line of national defence. He believes 
that it is the duty of every man to prepare himself to defend 
his country in case of need, and certainly as far as his pro- 
posed organisation of the second line of defence goes, 
Mr. Haldane appears to be in the main on the right lines. I 
speak with some reserve on this point because, as I have 
already said, I am not a military expert, and I am in the 
presence of some eminent military experts, but it does 
appear to me that in two points at least Mr. Haldane has 
hit on the true principle — in attempting to give us one force 
behind the Regular Army, instead of a number of com- 
peting and overlapping forces, and in attempting to organise 



168 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [mar. 15, 

that second line of defence on some rational principle, 
that of a proper proportion of the different arms with a 
proper equipment and with the several parts subordinated 
to the whole. The plan that he proposes seems to be the 
skeleton of a real body. What we want is to clothe it 
with flesh and blood. What is wanting in his proposed 
system is, in the first place, that we are not by any means 
sure of getting the men to fill the cadres, and in the next 
place it also suffers from this trifling defect, that we are 
not going to give these men, even if we get them, any serious 
training until war actually breaks out. The enemy, to 
be sure, would not be so inconsiderate or so unchivalrous 
as to hustle us unduly while we were busy drilling. Is not 
this playing with the whole thing ? Is not this incon- 
sistent with the root idea, that it is the duty of every man 
to serve if need be in defence of his country ? But that 
duty implies a corresponding right, the claim that every 
man has on the State, that it should enable him by proper 
training and by proper equipment to discharge that duty 
with efficiency. Both these essentials are lacking here. 
There is no obligation to serve, and there is no provision 
for training which would be really adequate. I think that 
we should be grateful, and for my own part I am grateful, 
to Mr. Haldane for his ideas, but as a philosopher he cannot 
object if we press him to be logical and to carry them to 
their inevitable conclusion. If it is the duty, and he says 
it is the duty, of every able-bodied man, if need be, to 
defend his country, it cannot be a secondary or subordinate 
duty. If it is a duty at all, it is a very big duty. Why 
then object, and worse than object, why denounce and hold 
up your hands in horror at the idea of that duty being 
enforced by law, as every other civic duty, including many 
minor ones, is enforced ? You do not leave it optional to 
a man to pay taxes. It is the duty of the citizen to con- 
tribute according to his means to the cost of the State, 
and the law compels him to do it. If it is also his duty 
to contribute in his person to the defence of the State, why 
should not the law compel him to do that also ? Why in 



1907] NATIONAL SERVICE 169 

the name of common sense is the one just and the other 
unjust ? the one Enghsh and the other un-English ? the 
one freedom and democratic government, and the other 
tyranny and oppression ? It is simply absurd to talk of 
dragooning the people into general mihtary service. Where 
is the power that can dragoon the people of this country ? 
Unless a majority of the people are convinced of the necessity 
for it, the thing cannot be done, I know the argument 
' What is the use of talking ? The majority of the people 
never will approve of such a system.' Well, that remains to 
be seen. We stand here, at any rate, to declare our belief 
that you will never have real security, or, what is almost 
as important, the sense of security, unless you have behind 
your small Regular Army a national militia through which, 
with certain exceptions which every country recognises, 
your whole able-bodied youth are passed. We regard it 
as the completion of the education of the citizen. We 
hold that the State should have a claim on the service of 
the men so trained during the early years of their manhood 
in case of national emergency, as to the existence of which 
Parliament should decide. Finally, we believe that if all 
those men in authority, who realise our military weakness 
and the tremendous risks that it involves, had the courage to 
speak out as Lord Roberts does, the people of this country 
would shoulder the burden, if it be a burden, and make the 
sacrifice, if it be a sacrifice. Personally I go further, and 
believe, though I may be exceptional in believing it, that 
what appears to be a sacrifice would turn out to be a bless- 
ing, even if we never fought another war, as very likely 
we should never have to. The system we propose would 
be a blessing in peace as well as war. The last word I 
have to say to you is as to the question of cost. The cost 
in money would no doubt be considerable, but I do not 
think that it would be enormous. I do not think that it 
would be as great an annual charge as the interest on the 
money wasted during the Boer War in consequence of our 
unpreparedness. I am perfectly certain that it would 
not be equal to the interest on the money that would be 



170 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 23, 

wasted in a really great war in consequence of the same 
unpreparedness. But no doubt what people are afraid of 
is not so much the cost in money as what may be called 
the cost in kind — the hardship that it might cause — a 
healthy hardship ; the inconvenience that might be in- 
volved, the loss of time to the individual citizen, while 
he was taken away from productive labour. Yes, but 
there is something else. What if the sacrifice of time, 
which after all would be a very small percentage of a man's 
working life, is going to make him a better man during the 
rest of his working years, and very likely to prolong them ? 
That is a point which you have to consider, and which 
especially the working men have to consider. Military 
training, in the vast majority of cases, tends to make a 
man physically better and morally tougher. It passes 
him through a school which, after all, has no equal for 
teaching discipline, endurance, manliness, order, comrade- 
ship, and patriotism. You talk of the loss of industrial 
efficiency. I believe that there would be a gain in industrial 
efficiency and a gain in other things too ; a gain in the sense 
of common citizenship and the drawing together of classes 
by the performance of a common public duty ; a gain in 
the increased feeling of dignity and responsibility which 
men would have, who had actually done something for 
their country. I believe that, if the nation had military 
training, it would not be necessary for us to blush, as we 
sometimes have to blush now, because reverence for the 
flag, the emblem of national unity, is made an object of 
derision by members of Parliament — even by Ministers of 
the State — or because one of the noblest and most inspiring 
of human sentiments is described by the opprobrious term 
of ' flag-wagging.' I trust that the day will come when 
reverence for the flag will be as great among us as it was 
among the ancestors who won for us the high place which 
we still hold among the nations of the world. 



1907] EMPIRE EDUCATION 171 

GUILDHALL.— April 23, 1907 

Empire Education 

[At a meeting in the City called by the Lord Mayor, who presided, and 
attended by many prominent people, irrespective of party. Lord Milner 
moved ' that a pubhc subscription for the purpose of Empire education 
be inaugurated, and that the aid of the London and Provincial Press 
and of all societies and associations, without regard to party poUtics, be 
invoked to collect funds for the purpose ; that copies of these resolutions 
be sent to the Government, all Lieutenants of Counties, Lord Mayors, and 
Mayors throughout the country, inviting them to call pubhc meetings 
and submit thereto similar resolutions, and appeal for subscriptions to 
the fund.'] 

The field of knowledge in these days is so vast, the time 
available to gain even an elementary acquaintance with 
it is so limited, that there is no room for fads in educa- 
tion, there is no room for any work of supererogation. 
But surely it is not a fad, surely it is the very essence of 
a sound national education to make good citizens ; and 
how can you expect to make them unless you familiarise 
the young with the nature of the State of which they 
are to become members, with the extent, if I may use 
that expression, of their heritage, with the opportunities 
it offers, and with the duties which it imposes on them. 
That, and nothing less than that, is the object which we 
set before ourselves. We want to make them realise the 
meaning of that flag which some of us desire to see floating 
over every school-house in every portion of the Empire. 
What does it mean ? It means that every child of European 
race who is born a subject of the King is born a member 
of a certain State. What is the State of which he is born 
a member ? It is not only the particular country of his 
birth ; it is the whole dominions of the Crown, We want 
our youth to realise the greatness of this privilege — the 
fact that they are potential citizens of every community 
over which this flag flies, that in going from these islands 
to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, they are not 
going to a strange land any more than the Canadian, the 
Australian, or the New Zealander is coming to a strange 



172 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may i6, 

land when he comes here ; that their transference does 
not mean that they are going to be exiles or strangers, 
but that they are going from home to home, from one 
portion of their common country to another. Now, is 
that a difficult thing to teach, or is it a superfluous thing 
to bring home to them ? I say it is as easy as it is vital. 
Give me a map of the British Empire — I do not think I 
should make a good schoolmaster, but I do think that 
with that map before me I could be interesting for half 
an hour, and that I could manage to make any class realise 
something of what it all meant to them individually. I 
believe that would not be beyond even my limited powers 
of explanation ; but I hasten to add that I do not propose 
to deliver that half-hour's lecture on this occasion. Not 
that I think it is only British children who might be benefited 
by some instruction on the elementary facts of the British 
Empire. I thinlt I know a good few adults who would 
be the better for it — ^not excluding some of our legislators. 

Now I know that some people feel a kind of shudder 
when you talk to them about Imperial patriotism ; they 
do not like the idea of looking on that map with such a 
lot of red upon it, because they think it leads to a spirit 
of boastfulness and aggression, and what they are pleased 
to call Jingoism. But is that really the spirit which the 
contemplation of that vast and complex structure which 
we call the British Empire is calculated to excite in any 
intelligent mind ? A spirit of gratitude certainly^ — grati- 
tude for the greatness of our birthright — a spirit of humble 
admiration for the efforts and the sacrifices of the past, 
for the enterprise, the courage, the heroic endurance, the 
patient labour of past generations of men and women of 
our race who have built it up and who are building it up 
to-day. This is something very different, the very anti- 
thesis of that spirit of boastfulness, of levity, of self-com- 
placency which is attributed — how wrongly attributed — 
to those of us who are proud to call ourselves Imperialists. 
For my own part, the contemplation of that map inspires 
me not with feelings of boastfulness or over-confidence, 



1907] OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT 173 

but with a sense of my own insignificance in the presence 
of anything so great, with a deep anxiety to preserve any- 
thing so precious, with a desire to be worthy of privileges 
so unique. That is the kind of spirit which we believe 
that Empire education is calculated to promote among 
the young. It is with something like a feeling of awe 
that I contemplate the British Empire of to-day, with 
something like a doubt whether any nation is capable of 
permanently sustaining so vast a burden and of rising to 
so great a responsibility. I should feel that more strongly 
if it were not for the faith which I have in the younger 
members of the great British family, in the future that is 
before them, in the growing desire, of which I feel we have 
lately had such striking testimony, to maintain and sus- 
tain and draw closer the bonds which unite us and them. 
With them I believe we can face the future with an equal 
mind. We cannot compel them to stay with us. We do 
not dream of doing so ; but if they come forward and hold 
out the right hand of fellowship, if they claim to join with 
us in sustaining the great burden of our national destiny 
in an equal partnership, I cannot realise the depth of the 
blindness which would lead us to throw away so price- 
less an opportunity of unity. Only ignorance — ignorance 
the most crass and most unpardonable — could lead to such 
a catastrophe. It is against that ignorance that we are 
waging war. 

BURLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON.— May 16, 1907 

Oxford University Endowment Fund. 

[From a speech at a meeting of Oxford men held to consider a scheme 
for raising a fund to meet the more urgent needs of the University.] 

What we have to understand is that the University is 
short of money to fulfil its duty, not only as the great home 
of classical learning, but as a University competent to 
keep up with all the new studies of the time. We realise 
the needs, and if it is said that we ought to wait before 
trying to supply those needs, till the University has reformed 
itself, and has applied all its endowments to the best possible 



174 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

purposes, my reply is, that the University is constantly 
reforming itself, and that even if its endowments were per- 
fectly applied, they still would not suf&ce for all the claims 
upon the Oxford of to-day. 

GROCERS' HALL, LONDON.— May 29, 1907 

Freedom of City Gom'panies. 
[From a speech in acknowledgment of the honorary freemanship of the 
Grocers' Company, conferred on Lord MUner in 1903.] 

There is one feature which strikes me about the list of 
honorary freemen of the Grocers' Company, and that is 
that the Company seem to have had a special preference 
for those of their countrymen who have been called upon 
to serve outside this country, to maintain its honour and 
power, whether in war or peace, in distant lands. Men 
who are called upon so to serve their country never look 
forward to any higher reward in any time of stress or strain 
than that of being welcomed on their return home as men 
who have done, or tried to do, honest work. Recogni- 
tion of that kind is what they look forward to above all, 
and I believe it is the healthy habit and practice of the 
British nation, irrespective of party, to extend such recog- 
nition to men who have tried to do their best in its service 
abroad. I am not particularly disturbed by the fact that 
from time to time party considerations do intrude, and 
that it is not always possible for a man who has been, or 
tried to be, the faithful agent of the Government of his 
day, to be regarded, at first at any rate, with equally favour- 
able eyes by another Government and party ; but I do not 
think you should make too much of that. As far as public 
praise or blame is concerned, if one is sometimes blamed 
when one does not deserve it, one is sometimes praised when 
one does not deserve it, and the best thing to do is to bank 
the praise when you get it, and live upon it when you do 
not get it, and not to make too much fuss either way. 
Let us take Montaigne's counsel not to make too much 
marvel of our own fortunes. Broadly speaking, and in 
the long run, I believe that when the temporary disturb- 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 175 

ances caused by public controversy are over, public judg- 
ment settles down to a fair and reasonable appreciation 
of public servants, and I look forward to the time when 
the judgment of the Grocers' Company in enrolling me 
among its honorary freemen will be generally endorsed 
by the British pubhc ; not indeed that they wiU place me 
on the same level as some of those for whom I have the 
honour to reply, but that they will hold me perhaps not 
altogether unworthy to be associated with them. 

YORK.— May 30, 1907 

South Africa and the Consolidation of the Empire 
[At a meeting organised by the Yorkshire Liberal Unionist Association.] 
It may seem an odd and even an insincere remark to make 
to a party meeting, but it gives me no pleasure to adopt 
a critical attitude to the Government of the country on 
Imperial questions, any more than it would on foreign 
questions. My instinct, as an old servant of the Crown, 
is to side with the Government of the day on these ques- 
tions ; my earnest desire as a citizen is to see them removed 
from the arena of party troubles. It is with the greatest 
reluctance that I refer to South Africa at aU. I don't 
like crying over spilt milk, but reticence has been rendered 
impossible, for me at any rate, by the self-laudation in 
which one Government speaker after another indulges, 
about what they are pleased to call the success of their 
South African policy. Not only are we to fall down and 
worship this grand achievement, but it is held up to us as 
a type and model for future guidance. Now, that being 
the case, I say it becomes a public duty to inquire what 
is the real character of this grand achievement, and what 
are the wonderful blessings which His Majesty's Govern- 
ment has bestowed upon South Africa, and especially upon 
the Transvaal, which has been the principal field of their 
beneficent activity. Well, evidently these blessings did 
not include the sordid item of material prosperity. In that 
respect the picture of the country, which has been blessed 
by their special attentions for eighteen months, is a picture 



176 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

of unrelieved gloom. Don't take my words for this. I 
wiU cite the present Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal, 
a distinguished leader of the Dutch race.^ Speaking the 
other day at Klerksdorp he said, ' our revenue has been 
falling off for months. The fall is progressive. There is 
no stop to it. I do not know how far it will go, but I must 
warn you not to expect too much from the Government, 
for the Government is face to face with a most serious 
financial condition.' Our newest colony has been brought 
to the verge of bankruptcy. I know the Government will 
try to make out that this is not all as I say ; that the 
depression in that country has been continuous since the 
war ; that there are other causes for it, besides the mis- 
chievous meddling from home. But no man who is familiar 
with the recent economic history of the Transvaal can 
maintain for one moment that this present depression is 
independent of the activity of the Government and of the 
Liberal party. So far from being no fault of theirs, it is 
entirely their creation. They are entitled to the sole and 
undivided credit of it. Indeed, very rarely in history has 
there been an economic effect so strikingly traceable to a 
single cause. When you talk of the economic condition 
of South Africa, you have to bear in mind three stages. 
There was great depression — ^nothing like what it is at 
present — but still very severe depression shortly after the 
war, due apparently to the after-effects of the war, but 
due even more, I believe, to the over-sanguine expectations 
which I shared with many other people as to a rapid expan- 
sion of industry — expectations which gradually died down 
as the labour difficulty became more and more oppressive. 
But there was a distinct and unmistakable, though un- 
fortunately a very short-lived recovery when, owing to 
the permission to supplement native labour by the intro- 
duction of labour from China, it appeared that the one great 
obstacle to the development of the country had been 
removed. I speak of what I know perfectly well from my 
own experience. I was living there at the time ; I was in 

1 General Smuts. 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 177 

command of all the means of information, and I remember 
that there was a most unmistakable improvement in every 
direction. So much so was that the case that, while, in 
the autumn of 1903, I remember that I regarded the 
financial prospects of South Africa with grave alarm, 
when I left the country in the spring of 1905 I did so, as far 
as its financial condition was concerned, with an abso- 
lutely easy mind. But then followed, in the second half 
of 1905, the revival of the anti-Chinese agitation in this 
country, culminating in the terminological, pictorial, and 
other inexactitudes which characterised the general elec- 
tion. From that day to this the policy of the party in 
power has been dominated by the necessity of justifying 
and living up to the excesses of that electoral campaign. 
And from that day to this, and as a consequence of that, 
and a consequence of that alone, the economic condition of 
the country has been one of steep, continuous, and most 
appalling decline. The apologists of the Government try 
to wriggle out of it by saying, ' Why, if the importation 
of labour was so necessary and expedient, has the depres- 
sion continued and become worse since the Chinese came ? ' 
It did not become worse when the Chinese came ; it became 
worse when their coming was interfered with. The Chinese 
experiment — I know it is unpopular in this country, but 
I shall not hesitate to defend it to the end — the Chinese 
experiment was never given the ghost of a chance. The 
last batch of the imported labourers had not landed, the 
first arrivals had not had time to acquaint themselves with 
the work or their surroundings, before we began to threaten 
to send the whole lot away again, and that before the expiry 
of their contracts. No industry in the world, no business, 
no enterprise, could possibly flourish if there were to be 
these sudden and arbitrary interferences with the very 
fundamental conditions on which it rests. Under these 
circumstances, all the poor Chinese could do was to increase 
the production of the mines by something like eight 
millions per annum. They could not prevent the effects of 
the threat to expel them, or of the overshadowing fear of 

M 



178 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

further ignorant Government interference with the condi- 
tions of industry. They could not prevent those things 
which have brought about the total destruction of con- 
fidence, the withdrawal of capital, the death of all new 
enterprise, the drying up of the springs of industry, and 
which have led to that appalling condition of affairs which 
you see in the Transvaal at present. 

I will do the Government this justice. I believe they 
have not wished to do all the mischief that they have done. 
They have tried over and over again to get out of it by 
following what, on the principle of self-government, which 
they have themselves established, is now the only right 
course — ^letting the people of the colony settle this labour 
question for themselves. But the men behind them would 
not tolerate it ; they will not tolerate it even now. 
Their respect for colonial independence, of which they are 
always boasting, does not go so far as that. It does not go 
the length of allowing the Transvaal to take a course which 
would prove them in the wrong, and show to all the world, 
if it needed showing, the magnitude of the deception which 
they practised upon the electorate here. They have handed 
over every British interest in the Transvaal, they boast 
of having handed them over, with one exception. That 
exception is the mining industry, upon which the whole 
prosperity of the country depends, and which the new 
Boer Government would be obliged, even for its own 
sake, to treat with a certain consideration. Therefore, it 
is not to be allowed to have a free hand to deal with it. 
It is to be coerced from here into inflicting injuries 
upon that industry, and in order to mitigate the effects 
of such injuries to the Boers themselves, the credit of 
this country is to be pledged to the extent of five millions 
— five millions to be given to the Boer farmers in order to 
induce them to continue the Radical policy of destroying 
the British industry of the Transvaal, and driving the 
British population out of the country. I know our sentimen- 
talists will be very angry with me for having dwelt so much 
on these base material considerations. What matters a 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 179 

hundred millions knocked off the value of British property 
and British investments in South Africa, compared with 
the impressive but elevating spectacle which their policy 
has produced — ^Briton and Boer locked in a fraternal 
embrace, and General Botha, who lately commanded armies 
in the field against us, asseverating his devotion to King and 
Empire. Well then, I am prepared to put aside this paltry 
economic aspect of things. I will look at the grand achieve- 
ment entirely from its political and moral side. It is just 
from that side that it seems to me most deplorable. The 
injury inflicted on the South African British, great as it is, 
wanton as it is, is nothing in the history of the Empire as 
compared with the political folly of hurrying on self- 
government at a time and under conditions which are 
bound to give you a Dutch instead of a British Transvaal. 
Now you wiU say to me : What is the importance of that ? 
It is the decisive factor in the future complexion of all 
South Africa — ^political, social, racial. We are constantly 
being confronted with the Canadian precedent. The very 
essence of the Canadian precedent was the fact that we 
had a British Ontario to balance a non-British Quebec. 
Precisely in the same way we had it in our power, we held 
it in our hands, if we had only had a little patience, and a 
rational economic policy, to create a mainly British Trans- 
vaal, which would have been a fair and sufficient balance 
and counterpoise to the Dutch predominance in the Orange 
River Colony and the Cape. So that you would have had 
a fusion and growth of a new composite nation, not, indeed, 
British, but with a sufficiently strong British element to 
become, as Canada has become, a willing and helpful 
member of a great Imperial family. I put that forward 
as being, for ever and ever, the only one true, wise, rational, 
and patriotic policy. 

What is the position to-day ? To-day the Transvaal is, 
politically, entirely in the hands of Het Volk — a body 
which has not even got an English name. It is a Dutch 
racial organisation of the purest type, and the British 
elements which it has absorbed, or may absorb, will produce 



180 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

just as much effect upon its character, as the National 
Scouts who joined us towards the end of the war produced 
upon the character of Lord Kitchener's army. The Orange 
River Colony within a few months will find itself still more 
completely under Dutch domination. At the next election 
in the Cape Colony, when the disfranchised rebels will be 
restored to the register, Het Volk will be once more in 
office, and then you will see the whole of South Africa, 
from Cape Town to the Limpopo, under the dominance of 
the militant Dutch party, and the British population will be 
once more — I hope not for ever, but Heaven alone knows 
for how long — the under-dog. That is the grand achieve- 
ment — very grand from the antinational point of view. 
No doubt the significance of it is obscured by the exchange 
of courtesies that has marked, and very properly marked, 
the visit of the Prime Minister of the Transvaal to this 
country. General Botha himself is a man for whom it 
is easy even for his opponents to feel respect, both as a 
soldier and as a statesman. I yield to no one in my 
admiration for his manly, his sensible, and his conciliatory 
speeches. More than that, I believe those speeches express 
(subject to that amount of over-statement which is inevit- 
able in the circumstances) his real mind, that he is desirous 
of pursuing a moderate course and mitigating the violence 
of the transition which has placed him and his party in 
absolute power in the Transvaal. But neither General 
Botha nor any man can work miracles. He cannot prevent, 
though he may soften, the inevitable injustices which are 
involved in this, as in any other revolution, to the adherents 
and allies of the system which has been swept away. Only 
continuity of policy, only a process of gradual change — 
evolution in fact, not revolution — could have prevented 
these, and General Botha is not to blame because we have 
chosen to pursue a headlong policy. And then, again, 
he, like other leaders, has to take account of the men 
behind him. I know many people in this country, not 
only the supporters of the present Government, but many 
belonging to the Opposition, are hugging themselves with 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 181 

the idea, that our generosity has made a deep impression 
upon the Boer people, and that we can count upon their 
eternal gratitude and affection. Well, that is not the 
interpretation which the Boers generally have put upon our 
action. In some parts of the back veld the impression 
prevails, as I am told by friends of mine who live there, 
that England has been conquered by some foreign country. 
They are rather vague in the back veld about our geography 
and politics, but they are very shrewd people nevertheless. 
But among the more educated and influential Boers a 
different impression prevails. The impression is less crude, 
perhaps, but not, as it seems to me, less insidious or dis- 
honouring to this country. I want to read you a passage 
from the Volkstem, a very able paper, the principal organ 
of the party now in power in the Transvaal. 

' Much in the attitude of the British public towards General 
Botha, that would otherwise appear difficult of explanation, 
becomes intelligible only when we bear in mind Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman's openly expressed conviction that the 
late war has been useless, frivolous, and criminal. Though 
late in the day, John Bull has had his qualm of conscience, 
and is beginning to realise that the late Boer states have been 
treated in a manner which could only conduce to the per- 
manent disadvantage of Empire, unless an honest attempt were 
made to mitigate as much as possible the consequences of an 
iniquitous act.' 

So much for our delusion about the grand impression 
made by our generosity and confidence ! Not generosity 
but a tardy repentance and confession of guilt, entitling 
us not to gratitude but at best to a mitigation of punish- 
ment. Well, to you and me it may be a matter of compara- 
tive indifference that our actions should be thus misinter- 
preted, but how about our fellow criminals in South Africa ? 
How about the men and women, and especially the scattered 
and the isolated ones living on lonely farms among none 
too sympathetic neighbours, who, seven and a half years 
ago, when forty-eight hours' notice was given to us to 
clear out of South Africa, took their fortunes and some- 



182 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

times their lives in their hands, in order to support the 
Mother Country in what they beheved to be a just and 
inevitable struggle. Pleasant reading for them, this sort 
of thing ! An alluring prospect ! Surely, if we can do 
nothing more for them, we might at least refrain from 
impairing that which is alone left to them, their moral 
position, and be careful not to take any course which could 
make it appear that the Mother Country, for whose cause 
they made such sacrifices, is now ashamed of the cause 
which she called upon them to support. My point is that 
General Botha has by no means an easy task before him 
in carrying out that policy of appeasement which I believe 
he desires to carry out. And that task wiU not be ren- 
dered any the easier by premature jubilations, which 
treat his no doubt honest declarations as if they were 
already accomplished deeds. Let us honour him for his 
admirable bearing in the trying ordeal of his recent visit 
to this country. Let us show our cordial appreciation 
of his good intentions. But good sense and good feeling 
alike, consideration for him and consideration for those 
who have been his opponents, should bid us reserve our 
paeans and our profusest gratitude, until he has had at 
least a little time to convert his intentions into acts. 

After what has happened, the hope of binding South 
Africa to us in bonds of sympathy and affection must 
necessarily be greatly diminished. But we may still 
retain her allegiance, if the position of the Empire as a 
whole remains one which will give South Africans of what- 
ever race an interest and a pride in belonging to it. There- 
fore, the future of South Africa, and much else, depends 
upon the consolidation of the British Empire, upon the 
great movement, yet in its infancy, which seeks to draw 
together in more effective political bonds the scattered 
self-governing communities which aU own allegiance to 
our sovereign. The scope and the importance of that 
great movement, and also its difficulties, have recently been 
brought vividly before us at the Imperial Conference. I 
think it is better to wait for a full report of the proceedings 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 183 

of that Conference, before entering into discussions of it 
in detail. But even in the meagre precis, which is all that 
has been hitherto vouchsafed to us, there are some points 
which stand out with startling clearness. It is from the 
Colonies that aU the proposals for closer union come. All 
the keenness, aU the initiative, all the enthusiasm is on 
their side. The attitude of the representatives of this 
country was an attitude of sometimes poHte and some- 
times defiant negation. Prince Bismarck once said of 
another foreign statesman, who shall be nameless, that he 
was so much afraid of committing himself, that, the first 
thing he did when he woke in the morning, was to say 
' No ' three times, for fear of agreeing to anything in the 
course of the day. I am confident that the representa- 
tives of His Majesty's Government at the recent Confer- 
ence must have gone through the same vocal exercise over 
their early morning cup of tea. The President of the 
Board of Trade no doubt said — and it was the most sympa- 
thetic remark which fell from any representative of Great 
Britain during the whole proceedings — ^that this federa- 
tion of free communities was worth some sacrifice. It 
was a welcome and a memorable admission. But the 
course of the proceedings did not disclose any sacrifice 
which Mr. Lloyd George was prepared or was allowed to 
make. What it did disclose was an obstinate determina- 
tion on the part of the representatives of this country, not 
even to discuss the one proposal upon which all the Colonies 
were agreed, not even in the attenuated, final form of a 
reduction in favour of the Colonies of existing duties which 
nobody could say involved any sacrifice, but the reverse, 
on the part of the consumers in this country. But perhaps, 
after all, it is better, though it was a bitter disappointment at 
the time, that the representatives of this country would not 
make even the vestige of a concession to the policy, which 
all the colonial representatives were agreed in advocating. 
It is better, because some small concession to preferential 
trade might have disarmed a few of its advocates, without 
giving that system a really fair trial. As things stand, 



184 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

there is clearly nothing for it, but for all those, who feel 
any sympathy for the policy which the Colonies are press- 
ing upon us, to fight for all they are worth. For my own 
part, I am glad that the fight is to be on a broad issue and 
all along the line. His Majesty's Government say that they 
are reluctantly compelled to adopt their attitude of pure 
negation on principle. Well, but we are also fighting for a 
principle. Our principle is that blood is thicker than water. 
There is a great deal more in this question than a mere re- 
distribution of the incidents of taxation — so much off this 
article and so much on another. Neither does it begin or end 
with tariff alone. Preferential trade, and a great deal else, 
will follow as a matter of course, if British citizens, in every 
part of the Empire, can only learn to take the right atti- 
tude towards one another. I greatly sympathise with Sir 
William Lyne, when he says that the Colonists resent the 
idea that they should be treated on the same footing as 
foreigners. We know they have had their dinners paid 
for. We have delicately reminded them of it. But there 
is something more than that which they desire. I believe 
that the offer of preference, which some of our colonies have 
already given us, and which some are still anxious to give 
to us, is due quite as much to the influence of kinship and 
affection as it is to any material consideration. I think 
that the sting of our refusal to reciprocate lies chiefly in 
the impression it gives of a want of sympathy on our part. 
But is it wise to try to wean them from a sense of our 
common relationship, and of the consequences it involves ? 
Wise or otherwise, I do not think it is in accordance with 
the instinctive desire or wishes of the majority of the 
British people. I do not believe the Government will ever 
go to the country to ask it to support them in their atti- 
tude of blank negation to preferential trade as a whole. 
I am confident that their object will be to look for other 
issues, and pick a quarrel with the House of Lords, in order 
to obscure that great issue, when the next appeal is made. 
They must be aware of the deep uneasiness which exists 
among many of their supporters about the attitude which 



1907] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 185 

has been taken to the colonial offer. It has been said that 
the colonial offer was an hallucination of Mr. Chamberlain. 
The proceedings of the Conference have knocked that 
contention stone dead. Neither is it possible to say that 
preference is not a substantial advantage to us. It was 
admitted by Ministers during the discussion — grudgingly 
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, generously by the 
President of the Board of Trade — ^that the preference 
already granted by Canada had been of the greatest advan- 
tage to us, and the preference granted by Austraha and 
New Zealand will be of similar advantage, as soon as it has 
had time to be tested. One by one the arguments against 
preferential trade are going. Its opponents will soon be 
left with nothing but the ' big loaf and little loaf ' cry, and 
tremendously effective as that cry has doubtless been in 
the past, I believe that, like its brother cry of Chinese 
slavery, its days are numbered. We all know now that 
the ' slaves ' are so enamoured of their fetters that no 
inducement offered to them at your and my expense can 
induce them to put their fetters off or quit the scene of 
their oppression and their torments. But the derision, 
which has overtaken the cry of Chinese slavery, will pre- 
sently overtake its brother cry. We were told, when 
Mr. Chamberlain made the monstrous proposal to impose 
a duty of two shillings a quarter upon foreign wheat, that 
thirteen millions of the poorest people in this country, living 
on the verge of starvation, would be plunged into the abyss. 
But what has happened during the last few months ? 
Wheat has risen by six shillings a quarter. Where are all 
those starving milhons, who must be three times as much 
starved as they would have been under the two shillings 
duty ? Every Radical platform is ringing with congratula- 
tions as to the abounding prosperity of the country. I do 
not say that six shillings a quarter is not a serious thing. 
It is. But I do say that, if we can carry without wincing 
six shillings a quarter imposed upon us involuntarily by 
the accident of the season or the rigging of the market, 
we certainly shall not collapse under two shillings volun- 



186 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 30, 

tarily accepted in order to obtain a prerogative position 
in the greatest and most growing markets of the world. 
When I say that, I may seem to admit that a light duty 
upon corn would increase the price to the consumer. But 
I admit nothing of the kind. I believe it to be a most 
arguable proposition, and particularly in the case of corn, 
I believe that in probability there would be no rise at all. 
I go further than that, and I say that, if Mr. Chamberlain's 
proposal had been accepted three years ago instead of being 
laughed out of court by this big and little loaf phantasy, 
it is perfectly possible that the present rise would not 
have occurred, and, in any case, it would not have been as 
great as it is. For what has always been the strongest 
argument for preference to Canada in the matter of wheat 
importation ? It is the enormous extent of her yet unde- 
veloped agricultural land, which it only needs slight en- 
couragement to bring under cultivation. If we had given 
that encouragement, the scarcity with which we are now 
threatened would never have occurred. But my argu- 
ment does not rest on the contention that a light duty 
on any article of general consumption does not raise the 
price of that article. Assuming that it does — ^if for some 
great object we were to impose that duty and it were to 
fall on the consumer — ^what I say is that we have ample 
opportunities for compensating the consumer by the reduc- 
tion of taxes in other directions. It is undoubtedly a 
fundamental part of the doctrine of Tariff Reform, as I 
understand it, that, taking articles of universal consump- 
tion as a whole, our policy will not lead to any increase 
in their cost. And then there is such a thing as throwing 
a sprat to catch a herring. The object, the great object, 
of the whole policy of preferential trade, is to encourage 
the interchange of goods between this country and its great 
possessions over the seas, which are already enormously 
our best customers. A vast amount of wholly idle argu- 
ment is constantly going on with regard to the question 
whether our colonial trade or our foreign trade is of most 
value to us — idle because the adoption of the principle of 



igo;] THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE 187 

preference is not going to injure our foreign in the very 
smallest degree. Why on earth should it ? Nobody can 
tell you that. What it is going to do, is to develop to 
a very great extent our exports to our own Colonies — 
who are already our best customers. That is the great 
point, the fact that, man for man, the Colonies already 
take from us goods ranging from £2 a head at the lowest 
point, to something like £7, 10s. a head at the highest 
point, whereas even our best customers in other countries 
do not take more than 2s. to 12s. a head. And not only 
that, but by developing our trade with our best 
customers we are actually going to multiply those 
customers. Here is perhaps the most important con- 
sideration of aU, yet that which we hear of least in this 
country in connection with preferential trading. I mean 
the effect which it wiU have in developing the resources 
and increasing the population of the British dominions 
over-sea. And that, my lords and gentlemen, is the last 
argument which I am going to address to you, but it has 
a vital bearing upon the second point in the resolution 
before the meeting to-night, namely, the defence of the 
Empire. The first condition of defence is man-power — 
the number, the health, the strength of your citizens. Now, 
the habitable but still uninhabited portions of the British 
Empire will take millions upon millions of healthy, well- 
developed human beings. Our object is to fill those empty 
spaces, to use our trade policy so as to direct emigration 
into distant parts of our own dominions, instead of allow- 
ing it to go to waste all over the world. We do nt)t at 
present use the enormous advantages which our power as 
a great consuming country gives us. We should be able, 
by granting a very slight preference, to give an enormous 
advantage to the people who enjoy that preference. I say, 
then, bearing all these points in mind — the commercial im- 
portance of the matter, but still more its importance for 
the purpose of defence, its importance for the purpose of 
unity — ^let us grasp the hand which our fellow-countrymen 
from over the seas have stretched out towards us. Let 



188 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 25, 

us accept and establish for ever the principle that, not 
only in the struggles of war, but in the competitions of 
peace, we shall stand together as one nation ; that we shall, 
by reciprocal concessions, develop our respective industries 
and encourage intercourse with one another ; that we 
shall use our vast consuming power in this country with 
its teeming population, to build up new homes for our 
children in British dominions beyond the seas, and thus, 
at one and the same time, increase the prosperity, the 
strength, and the unity of the Empire. 



HOUSE OF LORDS.— June 25, 1907 

Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill 

[The Under-Secretary of State for War — Lord Portsmouth — ^in moving 
the second reading of this BiU, ruled out compulsory service on the 
grounds of its expensiveness, its superfluousness— since * in no circum- 
stances would we require the services of the total number, amounting to 
about 400,000, reaching the age of military service in each year ' — ^its 
unpopularity, and because ' the chief military problem in our case is not 
defence of the United Kingdom so much as defence of the Empire, and 
a compulsory system will not help us much in this.' Another difficulty, 
on which the speaker said that he need not dwell, was that ' of har- 
monising such a system with the upkeep of an army for service abroad 
which Imperial necessities demand.'] 

My Lords, like the noble Lord who has just addressed 
you, I approach this question purely as a civilian. I 
approach it with reluctance in an assembly containing 
so many men distinguished both by their achievements 
and by their knowledge of matters military, but perhaps 
I have had rather closer touch with the realities of war 
than many civilians. I have stood on the brink of 
and looked into the black abyss of national disaster, and 
the lessons which that experience taught me I shall carry 
with me to the grave. I have seen this country with its 
40,000,000 of people, and the Empire behind it with some 
12,000,000 or 15,000,000 more of the same race, engaged 
in a struggle with a small people about one-hundredth of 



1907] RESERVE FORCES BILL 189 

their number, and on the brink of defeat. And what 
made that experience bitterest of all was the thought 
that it was wholly unnecessary ; that this country had 
immense resources in men, brave, patriotic, and willing, 
and yet at the critical moment it could only just muster 
a sufficient number to pull through. That experience 
impressed upon me for my lifetime the fact that you 
cannot improvise soldiers, and that no amount of patriotism, 
willingness, or devotion will save a militarily untrained 
nation from disaster in any great struggle, 

I should have hesitated to have addressed your Lord- 
ships to-night, but for two reasons. One is that those 
who agree with me on the question of compulsory service 
— I fear we are but a small number in this House, but we 
are a growing body in the nation — have been directly 
challenged by the noble Earl, the Under-Secretary of 
State for War, I do not know why he directed so much 
attention to this puny body of adversaries, unless it was 
that he felt a little happier in dealing with those generalities 
with which it is possible to attack the position of the advo- 
cates of compulsory service than in dealing with some of 
the details of the complicated scheme which he was expound- 
ing. Be that as it may, I feel bound to say a few words in 
reply to some of the points which he raised against us. But 
there is another reason, and that is that I have been asked 
and pressed to speak by the noble and gallant Earl Lord 
Roberts, who is my leader on this question. I recognise 
him as my captain and obey his orders, though I sincerely 
wish he had a more able lieutenant. I will do this at the 
bidding of the noble Earl, not only because I recollect the 
day when he came out to South Africa and turned disaster 
into victory, which alone would have entitled him to my 
willing obedience in all questions of this kind, but because, 
if I may say so without disrespect, I feel when listening to 
the noble and gallant Earl on this subject, that I am breath- 
ing a different atmosphere from that which prevails when 
even the ablest and most experienced of those distinguished 
statesmen who have to deal with military questions in the 



190 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 25, 

country are addressing us. It seems to me that the noble 
Earl keeps continually before him and is always pressing 
towards two vital points : our requirements and our 
capacities, which are the only two points which in my 
opinion profoundly matter ; whereas all others who deal 
with this question, however great the ability and experi- 
ence which they bring to bear upon it, never get beyond 
certain given conditions which have no foundations in the 
nature and essence of things, and are more or less accidental 
— I mean the existing objection on the part of perhaps 
the majority, at any rate of large classes, of the people to 
citizen service, and the idea of a given number of millions 
which we have drifted into regarding as a sort of generally 
admitted figure round which our military expenditure is 
bound to revolve. 

When I consider how different has been the experience 
of many of our most distinguished statesmen at the 
War Office from their experience anywhere else, when I 
see one man after another, who in every other public 
office or public duty which he has filled or discharged has 
achieved great distinction, attempting in succession the 
task of reforming our military system, and not one emerg- 
ing from the ordeal with increased credit, I do not believe 
for a moment that it can be the fault of those distinguished 
men. Why should they always be less successful as Secre- 
taries of State for War than in any other capacity ? The 
fault lies in the fact that we are trying to deal with this ques- 
tion on an impossible basis, and we shall continue to fail as 
long as we try to deal with it on that basis. Given the neces- 
sities of the British Empire, given the vast responsibility 
for defence which it imposes upon us, I am firmly convinced 
that you cannot produce any satisfactory military scheme, 
if you are going to be bound by the two rigid limits of 
volunteer service and an expenditure of something like 
£28,000,000 of money. We shall go on from failure to failure 
unless we recognise that fundamental condition of things. 

Do we approach the question of our naval defence in 
this spirit 1 Attention has been called to-night to the 



1907] RESERVE FORCES BILL 191 

fact that the Naval Estimates at one time circled round 
ten or eleven millions, and they have become £36,000,000 
—reduced now, I beheve, to £30,000,000. Why was it 
that the nation, which at one time would not agree to 
spend more than £11,000,000 on the Navy, accepted and 
accepts with readiness this much larger sum ? Because 
the question of naval defence has once for all been put 
upon an intelligible basis, because it has been approached 
from the point of view of a reasoned and thought-out 
consideration of our requirements. Nothing of the kind 
is ever attempted — at any rate officially — in connection 
with the requirements for the defence of the Empire on 
land. If we were to approach the matter from the point 
of view of our requirements, I do not believe that it would 
involve so enormous an increase of expenditure, though I 
have always admitted that some increase would be neces- 
sary. We should, however, find that it demanded a number 
of men which we can never hope to get on the present 
basis. Only numbers far larger than are contemplated 
by Mr. Haldane's expeditionary force, and far larger than 
any British statesman has ever dared face, would really 
suffice to defend this State and Empire in contingencies 
which are far from improbable. It is because the noble 
and gallant Field-Marshal continually and courageously 
strives to make his countrymen realise these facts, and deals 
with the subject on the fundamental ground of what is 
really necessary for the defence of the Empire, instead of 
for ever arguing upon certain given, more or less accidental, 
data, which have been conventionally accepted by both 
parties in politics — it is for this reason that he appeals on 
this question to his countrymen as I believe no other states- 
man of to-day appeals, and is producing an effect upon 
pubhc opinion, of the extent of which political leaders are 
at present very little aware. 

I wish to be as brief as possible, but I should like to reply 
shortly to some of the arguments addressed to us by the 
noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of the Bill. 
I am not sure that I shall cover the ground of all his objec- 



192 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 25, 

tions, but I will deal with the most important. One objec- 
tion which he took, and it is a common one, was that any 
system of universal mihtary training and service, such as is 
advocated by the National Service League, would provide 
us with a much larger army than we need for home defence, 
and would not provide what after aU we most need, namely, 
the power of expansion for our Expeditionary Army in 
case of a serious war abroad. I think that is a fair state- 
ment of one of the noble Earl's arguments. But that is 
an argument which comes strangely from the noble Earl, 
representing as he does in this House a Secretary of State 
who has dwelt with emphasis over and over again, and 
has defended his whole plan principally on the ground of 
the importance of having such a force in this country as 
would enable us greatly to expand our Army abroad in the 
event of any really serious danger to the Empire. That 
is the whole justification of the ' Nation in Arms,' for which 
the Secretary of State has made such eloquent appeals. 

Let me say how this question strikes me. I consider 
that we are killing two birds with one stone. I do not 
believe that we are so safe in this country either from raids 
or from serious invasion as some noble Lords assume. I 
believe there is a great deal of the best military opinion 
on my side, and as long as there is any serious military 
opinion in favour of the possibility not only of a raid but 
of a reaUy dangerous invasion, I for my part decline to 
have anything to do with running the fearful risk of being 
as unprepared to meet it as we are to-day. Against any 
serious invasion we require numbers such as the system 
we advocate alone would give. But there is a great deal 
more in it than that. The existence of a large body of 
really trained men in this country would give a freedom 
to our Regular Army which it does not at present possess, 
because a certain number under present circumstances 
wiU always be retained here. Most important of all, it 
would give to our Fleet a freedom of action which would 
at least double its effective usefulness in time of war. 
There is nothing more serious in our present state of military 



1907] RESERVE FORCES BILL 193 

unpreparedness at home than the cramping effect which it 
would have on the action of our Fleet. The first principle 
of naval strategy, whether we belong to the Blue Water 
School or not, is that the Fleet should be free to go and seek 
out the enemy's fleet and destroy it. Can any one who 
knows the state of public opinion in this country realise 
what the effect of the absence of the Fleet from these shores 
with an enemy possibly threatening them would be ? Can 
anybody believe that the boldest Secretary of State would 
venture to send the Fleet where he ought to send it in case 
of war with any great Power, as long as we had not such 
an army or at any rate such an armed force in this country 
as would put any danger of invasion out of the question ? 
The existence of a trained nation here would in the first 
place give far greater effectiveness to our Regular Army, 
but it would also give far greater effectiveness to our 
Fleet. 

But no doubt the greatest point of all is that, if we had 
here a trained nation, if we had what the Secretary of 
State has asked for, namely, a large reserve of men trained 
to arms, we should be able to send out in case of a great 
emergency a large number of volunteers, who would be 
effective soldiers from the first moment they took part in 
the campaign. The risk which we run to-day, the weak- 
ness which afflicted us so greatly in the South African 
War, and the weakness which may destroy us in the case 
of a great war, is that there is no amount of military train- 
ing and knowledge on the part of the nation at all pro- 
portionate to the amount of bravery and patriotism which 
its citizens undoubtedly possess. Undoubtedly the strongest 
of all arguments for the general military training of the 
people is the fact, that it would put this nation into a 
position effectively to defend any portion of the Empire, 
if it was convinced of the rightness of the war in which it 
was engaged. To-morrow you might be engaged in a 
struggle in which there were not, as there unfortunately 
were in the case of the South African War, differences of 
opinion among us — a struggle in which we were all con- 



194 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

vinced of the righteousness of our cause — a struggle upon 
which the very life of our Empire depended, and in which 
we might require 500,000 men. We have got the 500,000 
men, but how many of them would be of any use in the 
field if they were to volunteer and go out ? The two vital 
points of the whole discussion are our possible require- 
ments and our actual capacities. The contention of those 
who are led by the noble and gallant Field-Marshal is that 
it is the business of our statesmen to see that every potential 
military capacity of the country is developed to such an 
extent as will enable us to provide for our possible 
requirements. 

Then one word in conclusion as to the alleged moral 
superiority of the voluntary principle. We are told that 
a smaller number of men giving their services freely are 
better worth having than a larger number acting under 
compulsion. What I object to in the present system is 
the premium which it sets upon a man not doing his duty 
in the matter of personal service for the defence of his 
country. If we even held the balance fairly between those 
who undertake this duty and those who do not, there would 
be something to be said for it. But our present system in- 
evitably throws the whole weight of our habits and social 
arrangements into the scale against the men who under- 
take this duty and favours the men who shirk it, so that 
the whole weight of the system leans against the volunteer. 
But I for my part am totally unable to understand how 
it can be contended, on the one hand, that the training of 
a man to fit himself to take part in the defence of the 
country and Empire is a duty, and, on the other hand, 
that it is an injury to the man to insist on his performing 
that duty. I cannot see the difference between this prin- 
ciple and the principle of taxation. You might just as 
well contend that, though it was the duty of a man to 
contribute with his purse to the defence of the country, 
yet it was unjustifiable to make that contribution a legal 
obligation upon him. The two things seem to me to rest 
upon absolutely the same basis of principle, and I am 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 195 

thoroughly convinced that, if you are really going to attempt 
what I believe this Bill honestly desires to do, namely, to 
obtain a citizen army of adequate dimensions, you will 
never be successful so long as you are not in a position to 
lay down some general rule with regard to it to which all 
citizens have to conform. On the very threshold of your 
efforts, you are met by the objection of the employers. 
We are told that no doubt it would be better if these people 
trained for a fortnight or three weeks, but that it cannot 
be done, because employers are willing to let them go for a 
week, but not for a fortnight. The whole national attitude 
of mind which makes such an argument possible is wrong. 
If this is a thing which is for the good of the nation as a 
whole, the question of the convenience of employers cannot 
be allowed to stand in the way. Yet it will stand in the 
way, and difficulties of this character will for ever defeat 
you, until you have laid down one general simple rule for 
every able-bodied man with regard to service in the Army, 
and then, in this country as in other more logical countries, 
such difficulties will be swept away. 



TUNBRIDGE WELLS.— October 24, 1907 

Tariff Reform 

[At a meeting organised by the TariflE Reform League.] 

As this is a Tariff Reform meeting pure and simple, I am 
anxious not to approach the subject in any party spirit 
or in any spirit of acrimonious controversy. The question 
is a difficult and complicated one, and though I am a strong 
Tariff Reformer myself, I hope I am not incapable of seeing 
both sides of the case. I certainly should have reason to 
be ashamed if I could not be fair to those whom, for the 
sake of brevity and convenience, I will caU Free Traders, 
though I do not altogether admit the correctness of that 
designation. My views were once the same as theirs, and 
though I long ago felt constrained to modify them, and 
had become a Tariff Reformer some years before the subject 



196 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

attained its present prominence in public discussion, it 
would ill become me to treat as foolish arguments which I 
once found so convincing, or to vilify opinions which I once 
honestly shared. 

What has happened to me is what I expect has happened 
to a good many people. I still admire the great Free 
Trade writers, the force of their intellect, the lucidity of 
their arguments. There can be no clearer proof of the 
spell which they exercised over the minds of their country- 
men, than the fact that so many leading public men on 
both sides of politics remain their disciples to this very 
day. But for my own part, I have been unable to resist 
the evidence of facts, which shows me clearly that in the 
actual world of trade and industry things do not work 
out even approximately as they ought to work out, if the 
Free Trade theory were the counsel of perfection which 
I once thought it. And that has led me to question 
the theory itself ; and so questioned, it now seems to me far 
from a correct statement of the truth, even from the point 
of view of abstract inquiry. But I am not here to engage 
in abstract arguments. What I want to do is to look at 
the question from a strictly practical point of view, but 
at the same time a very broad one. I am anxious to bring 
home to you the place of Tariff Reform in a sound national 
poUcy, for, indeed, it seems to me very difficult to con- 
struct such a policy without a complete revision of our 
fiscal arrangements. Now a sound national policy has 
two aspects. There are two great objects of practical 
patriotism, two heads under which you may sum it up, 
much as the Church Catechism sums up practical religion, 
under the heads of ' duty to God ' and ' duty to your 
neighbour.' These objects are the strength of the Empire, 
and the health, the well-being, the contentedness of the 
mass of the people, resting as they always must on steady, 
properly organised, and fairly remunerated labour. Re- 
member always, these two things are one ; they are insepar- 
able. There can be no adequate prosperity for the forty 
or fifty million people in these islands without the Empire 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 197 

and all that it provides ; there can be no enduring Empire 
without a healthy, thriving, manly people at the centre. 
Stunted, overcrowded town populations, irregular employ- 
ment, sweated industries, these things are as detestable 
to true Imperialism as they are to philanthropy. And they 
are detestable to the Tariff Reformer. His aim is to im- 
prove the condition of the people at home, and to improve 
it concurrently with strengthening the foundations of the 
Empire. Mind you, I do not say that Tariff Reform alone 
is going to do all this. I make no such preposterous claim 
for it. What I do say is that it fits in better, alike with a 
policy of social reform at home and with a policy directed 
to the consolidation of the Empire, than our existing fiscal 
system does. 

Now, what is the essential difference between Tariff 
Reformers and the advocates of the present system ? I 
must dweU on this even at the risk of appearing tiresome, 
because there is so much misunderstanding on the subject. 
In the eyes of the advocates of the present system, the 
statesman, or at any rate the British statesman, when he 
approaches fiscal policy, is confronted with the choice of 
Hercules. He is placed, like the rider in the old legend, be- 
tween the black and the white horseman. On the one hand 
is an angel of light called Free Trade ; on the other a limb 
of Satan called Protection. The one is entirely and always 
right ; the other is entirely and always wrong. All fiscal 
wisdom is summed up in clinging desperately to the one 
and eschewing like sin anything that has the slightest 
flavour of the other. Now, that view has certainly the 
merit of simplicity, and simplicity is a very great thing ; 
but, if we look at history, it does not seem quite to bear 
out this simple view. This country became one of the 
greatest and wealthiest in the world, under a system of 
rigid Protection. It has enjoyed great, though by no 
means unbroken, prosperity under Free Trade. Side by 
side with that system of ours, other countries have pros- 
pered even more under quite different systems. These 
facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical spirit, which 



198 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not believe 
in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the 
imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, 
he thinks, be judged by one single test, namely, whether 
they do or do not favour the home producer, and be con- 
demned out of hand if they do favour him. 

The Tariff Reformer rejects this single cast-iron prin- 
ciple. He refuses to bow down before it, regardless of 
changing circumstances, regardless of the policy of other 
countries and of that of the other Dominions of the Crown. 
He wants a free hand in dealing with imports, the power 
to adapt the fiscal policy of this country to the varying 
conditions of trade, and to the situation created at any 
given time by the fiscal action of others. He has no super- 
stitious objection to using duties either to increase employ- 
ment at home or to secure markets abroad. But, on the 
other hand, he does not go blindly for duties upon foreign 
imports as so-called Free Traders go blindly against them, 
except in the case of articles not produced in this country, 
some of which the Free Traders are obliged to tax prepos- 
terously. Tariff Reform is not one-ideaed, rigid, inelastic, 
as our existing system is. Many people are afraid of it, 
because they think Tariff Reformers want to put duties 
on foreign goods for the fun of the thing, merely for the 
sake of making them dearer. Certainly Tariff Reformers 
do not think that cheapness is everything. Certainly they 
hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may 
cost the nation dear in the long run. But, unless cheap- 
ness is due to some mischievous cause, they are just as 
anxious that we should buy cheaply as the most ardent 
Cobdenite, and especially that we should buy cheaply what 
we cannot produce ourselves. Talking of cheapness, how- 
ever, I must make a confession which I hope will not be 
misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping — 
I wish we could get out of the way of discussing national 
economics so much from the shopping point of view. Surely 
what matters, from the point of view of the general well- 
being, is the productive capacity of the people, and the 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 199 

actual amount of their production of articles of necessity, 
use, or beauty. Everything we consume might be cheaper, 
and yet if the total amount of things which were ours to 
consume was less, we should be not richer but poorer. It 
is, I think, one of the first duties of Tariff Reformers to 
keep people's eyes fixed upon this vital point — the amount 
of our national production. It is that which constitutes 
the real income of the nation, on which wages and profits 
alike depend. 

And that brings me to another point. Production in 
this country is dependent on importation, more dependent 
than in most coimtries. We are not self -supplying. We 
must import from outside these islands vast quantities 
of raw materials and of the necessaries of life. That, at 
least, is common ground between the Free Trader and the 
Tariff Reformer. But the lessons they draw from the fact 
are somewhat different. The Free Trader is only anxious 
that we should buy all these necessary imports as cheaply 
as possible. The Tariff Reformer is also anxious that we 
should buy them cheaply, but he is even more anxious to 
know how we are going to pay for aU this vast quantity 
of things which we are bound to import. And that leads 
him to two conclusions. The first is that, seeing how much 
we are obliged to buy from abroad in any case, he looks 
rather askance at our increasing our indebtedness by buying 
things which we could quite easily produce at home, espe- 
cially with so many unemployed and half -employed people. 
The other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to 
him, is that it is of vital importance to us to look after our 
external markets, to make sure that we shall always have 
customers, and good customers, to buy our goods, and so to 
enable us to pay for our indispensable imports. The Free 
Trader does not share this solicitude. He has got a com- 
fortable theory, that if you only look after your imports 
your exports will look after themselves. Will they ? The 
Tariff Reformer does not agree with that at all. Imports 
no doubt are paid for by exports, but it does not in the 
least follow that, by increasing your dependence on others, 



200 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

you will necessarily increase their dependence on you. It 
would be much truer to say : ' Look after the exports and 
the imports will look after themselves.' The more you 
sell the more you will be able to buy, but it does not in the 
least follow that the more you buy the more you will be 
able to sell. What business man would go on the prin- 
ciple of buying as much as possible and say : ' Oh, that is 
all right. I am sure to be able to sell enough to pay for 
it.' The first thought of a wise business man is for his 
markets, and you as a great trading nation are bound to 
think of your markets, not only your markets of to-day 
but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow. 

The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when 
our imports were practically all supplemental to our 
exports, all indispensable to us, and when, on the other 
hand, the whole of the world was in need of our goods, far 
beyond our power of supplying it. Since then, the situa- 
tion has wholly altered. At this actual moment, it is true, 
there is temporarily a state of things which in one respect 
reproduces the situation of fifty years ago. There is for 
the moment an almost unlimited demand for some of our 
goods abroad. But that is not the normal situation. 
The normal situation is that there is an increasing invasion 
of our markets by goods from abroad, which we used to 
produce ourselves, and an increasing tendency to exclude 
our goods from foreign markets. The Tariff Reform 
movement is the inevitable result of these altered circum- 
stances. There is nothing artificial about it. It is not, 
as some people think, the work of a single man, however 
much it may owe to his genius and his courage, however 
much it may suffer, with other good causes, through his 
enforced retirement from the field. It is not an eccentric 
idea of Mr. Chamberlain's. Sooner or later it was bound 
to come in any case. It is the common sense and experi- 
ence of the people waking up to the altered state of affairs, 
beginning to shake itself free from a theory which no longer 
fits the facts. It is a movement of emancipation, a two- 
fold struggle for freedom — in the sphere of economic 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 201 

theory, for freedom of thought, in the sphere of fiscal 
policy, for freedom of action. 

And that freedom of action is needed quicldy. It is 
needed now. I am not doubtful of the ultimate triumph 
of Tariff Reform. Sooner or later, I beheve, it is sure to 
achieve general recognition. What does distress me is 
the thought of the opportunities we are losing in the mean- 
time. This year has been marked, disastrously marked, 
in our annals by the emphatic and deliberate rejection on 
the part of our Government of the great principle of pre- 
ferential trade within the Empire. All the other self- 
governing states are in favour of it. The United Kingdom 
alone blocks the way. What does that mean ? What 
is it that we risk losing as long as we refuse to accept the 
principle of preferential trade, and will certainly lose in 
the long run, if we persist in that refusal ? It is a posi- 
tion of permanent and assured advantage in some of the 
greatest and most growing markets in the world. Pre- 
ference to British goods in the British dominions beyond 
the sea would be a constant and potent influence tending 
to induce the people of those countries to buy what they 
require to buy outside their own borders from us, rather 
than from our rivals. It means beyond all doubt and 
question so much more work for British hands. And the 
people of those countries are anxious that British hands 
should get it. They have, if I may so express myself, a 
family feeling, which makes them wish to keep the business 
within the family. But business is business. They are 
willing to give us the first chance. But if we wiU give 
nothing in return, if we teU them to mind their own busi- 
ness and not to bother us with offers of mutual concessions, 
it is only a question of time, and the same chance will be 
given to others, who wiU not refuse to avail themselves of it. 

You see the beginning of the process already in such an 
event as the newly concluded commercial treaty between 
Canada and France. If we choose, it is still possible for 
us, not only to secure the preference we have in colonial 
markets, but to increase it. But if we do nothing, com- 



202 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct 24. 

mercial arrangements with other nations who are more 
far-sighted will gradually whittle that preference away. 
To my mind the action of Canada in the matter of that 
treaty, perfectly legitimate and natural though it be, is 
much more ominous and full of warning to us than the 
new Australian tariff, about which such an unjustifiable 
outcry has been made. Rates of duty can be lowered as 
easily as they can be raised, but the principle of preference 
once abandoned would be very difficult to revive. I am 
sorry that the Australians have found it necessary in their 
own interests to raise their duties, but I would rather see 
any of the British Dominions raise its duties and still give 
a preference to British goods, than lower its duties and take 
away that preference. Whatever duties may be imposed 
by Canada, Australia, or the other British Dominions, they 
will still remain great importers, and with the vast expan- 
sion in front of them their imports are bound to increase. 
They will still be excellent customers, and the point is that 
they should be our customers. 

In the case of Australia, the actual extent of the prefer- 
ence accorded to British goods under the new tariff is not, 
as has been represented, of small value to us. It is of 
considerable value. But what is of far more importance, 
is the fact that Australia continues to adhere to the prin- 
ciple of preference. Moreover, Australia, following the 
example of Canada, has established an extensive free list 
for the benefit of this country. Let nobody say after this 
that Australia shows no family feeling. I for one am 
grateful to Australia, and I am grateful to that great 
Australian statesman, Mr. Deakin, for the way in which, 
in the teeth of discouragement from us, he has still per- 
sisted in making the principle of preferential trade within 
the Empire an essential feature of the Australian tariff. 

Preference is vital to the future growth of British trade, 
but it is not only trade which is affected by it. The idea 
which lies at the root of it is that the scattered communities, 
which all own allegiance to the British Crown, should 
regard and treat one another not as strangers but as kins- 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 203 

men, that, while each thinks first of its own interests, it 
should think next of the interests of the family, and of the 
rest of the world only after the family. That idea is the 
very corner-stone of Imperial unity. To my mind, any 
weakening of that idea, any practical departure from it, 
would be an incalculable loss to all of us. I should regard 
a readjustment of our own Customs duties with the object 
of maintaining that idea, even if such readjustment were 
of some immediate expense to ourselves, as I hope to show 
you that it would not be, as a most trifling and inconsider- 
able price to pay for a prize of infinite value. I am the 
last man to contend that preferential trade alone is a suffi- 
cient bond of Empire. But I do contend that the main- 
tenance or creation of other bonds becomes very difficult, 
if in the vitally important sphere of commerce we are to 
make no distinction between our fellow-citizens across the 
seas and foreigners. Closer trade relations involve closer 
relations in aU other respects. An advantage, even a slight 
advantage, to colonial imports in the great British market 
would tend to the development of the Colonies as compared 
with the foreign nations who compete with them. But the 
development of the British communities across the seas 
is of more value to us than an equivalent development of 
foreign countries. It is of more value to our trade, for, 
if there is one thing absolutely indisputable, it is that these 
communities buy ever so much more of us per head than 
foreign nations do. But it is not only a question of trade ; 
it is a question of the future of our people. By encourag- 
ing the development of the British Dominions beyond the 
seas, we direct emigration to them in preference to foreign 
lands. We keep our people under the flag instead of 
scattering them all over the world. We multiply not 
merely our best customers but our fellow-citizens, our 
only sure and constant friends. 

And now is there nothing we can do to help forward this 
great object ? Is it really the case, as the Free Traders 
contend, that in order to meet the advances of the other 
British states and to give, as the saying is, preference for 



204 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

preference, we should be obliged to make excessive sacri- 
fices, and to place intolerable burdens on the people of this 
country ? I believe that this is an absolute delusion. I 
believe that, if only we could shake o£E the fetters of a narrow 
and pedantic theory, and freely reshape our own system 
of import duties on principles of obvious common sense, 
we should be able at one and the same time to promote 
trade within the Empire, to strengthen our hands in com- 
mercial negotiations with foreign countries, and to render 
tardy justice to our home industries. 

The Free Trader goes on the principle of placing duties 
on a very few articles only, articles, generally, of universal 
consumption, and of making those duties very high ones. 
Moreover, with the exception of alcohol, these articles are 
aU things which we cannot produce ourselves, I do not 
say that the system has not some merits. It is easy to work 
and the cost of collection is moderate. But it has also 
great defects. The system is inelastic, for the duties being 
so few and so heavy, it is difficult to raise them in case of 
emergency without checking consumption. Moreover, the 
burden of the duties falls entirely on the people of this 
country, for the foreign importer, except in the case of 
alcoholic liquors, has no home producer to compete with, 
and so he simply adds the whole of the duty to the price 
of the article. Last, but not least, the burden is inequit- 
ably distributed. It would be infinitely fairer, as between 
different classes of consumers, to put a moderate duty on 
a large number of articles than to put an enormous duty 
on two or three. But from that fairer and more reasonable 
system we are at present debarred by our pedantic adhesion 
to the rule that no duty may be put on imported 
articles, unless an equivalent duty is put on articles of the 
same kind produced at home. Why, you may well ask, 
should we be bound by any such rule ? I will tell you. 
It is because, unless we imposed such an equivalent duty, 
we should be favouring the British producer, and because 
under our present system, every other consideration has 
got to give way to this supreme law, the ' categorical impera- 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 205 

tive ' of the Free Trader, that we must not do anything 
which could by any possibility in the remotest degree 
benefit the British producer in his competition with the 
foreigner in our home market. It is from the obsession 
of this doctrine that the Tariff Reformer wishes to liberate 
our fiscal policy. He approaches this question free from 
any doctrinal prepossessions whatever. Granted that a 
certain number of millions have to be raised by Customs 
duties, he sees before him some five to six hundred millions 
of foreign imports on which to raise them, and so his first 
and very natural reflection is, that by distributing duties 
pretty equally over this vast mass of imported commodities, 
he could raise a very large revenue without greatly enhanc- 
ing the price of anything. Our present system throws 
away, so to speak, the advantage of our vast and varied 
importation by electing to place the burden of duties 
entirely on very few articles. As against this system, the 
Tariff Reformer favours the principle of a widespread 
tariff, of making aU foreign imports pay, but pay moderately, 
and he holds that it is no more than justice to the British 
producer that all articles brought to the British market 
should contribute to the cost of keeping it up. It is no 
answer to say that it is the British consumer who would 
pay the duty, for even if this were invariably true, which 
it is not, it leaves unaffected the question of fair play 
between the British producer and the foreign producer. 
The price of the home-made article is enhanced by the 
taxes which fall upon the home makers, and which are 
largely devoted to keeping up our great open market, but 
the price of the foreign article is not so enhanced, though 
it has the full benefit of the open market aU the same. 
Moreover, the price of the home-made article is also enhanced 
by the many restrictions which we place, and rightly place, 
on home manufacture in the interests of the workers — 
restrictions as to hours, methods of working, sanitary con- 
ditions, and so forth — all excellent, all laudable, but 
expensive, and from which the foreign maker is often 
absolutely, and always comparatively, free. The Tariff 



206 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 24, 

Reformer is all for the open market, but he is for fair play 
as between those who compete in it, and he holds that even 
cheapness ought not to be sought at the expense of unfair- 
ness to the British producer. 

I say, then, that the Tariff Reformer starts with the idea 
of a moderate all-round tariff. But he is not going to ride 
his principle to death. He is essentially practical. There 
are some existing duties, like those on alcoholic liquors, 
the high rate of which is justified for other than fiscal 
reasons. He sees no reason to lower these duties. On 
the other hand, there are some articles, such as raw cotton, 
which compete with no British produce, and even a slight 
enhancement of the price of which might materially injure 
our export trade. The Tariff Reformer would place these 
on a free list, for he feels that, however strong may be the 
argument for moderate all-round duties as a guiding rule, 
it is necessary to admit exceptions even to the best of rules, 
and it is part of his creed that we are bound to study the 
actual effect of particular duties both upon ourselves and 
upon others. No doubt that means hard work, an intimate 
acquaintance with the details of our industry and trade, 
an eye upon the proceedings of foreign countries. A 
modern tariff, if it is to be really suitable to the require- 
ments of the nation adopting it, must be the work of experts. 
But is that any argument against it ? Are we less com- 
petent to make a thorough study of these questions than 
other people, as for instance the Germans, or are we too 
lazy ? Free Traders make fun of a scientific tariff, but 
why should science be excluded from the domain of fiscal 
policy, especially when the necessity of it is so vigorously 
and so justly impressed upon us in every other field ? It 
is not only the War Office which has got to get rid of anti- 
quated prejudices and to open its eyes to what is going on 
in the world. Our financial departments might reason- 
ably be asked to do the same — and they are quite equally 
capable, and I have no doubt equally willing to respond 
to such an appeal — instead of leaving the most thorough, 
the most comprehensive, and the most valuable inquiry 



1907] TARIFF REFORM 207 

into the effects of import duties, which has ever been made 
in this country, to a private agency hke the Tariff Com- 
mission. 

I do not think it is necessary for me to point out how a 
widespread tariff, besides those other advantages which I 
have indicated, would strengthen our hands in commercial 
policy. In the first place, it would at once enable us to 
meet the advances of the other states of the Empire, and 
to make the British Empire in its commercial aspect a 
permanent reality. To do this it would not be necessary, 
nor do I think it would be right, to exempt goods from 
the British Dominions entirely from the duties to which 
similar goods coming from foreign lands are subject. Our 
purpose would be equally well served by doing what the 
Colonies do, and having two scales of duty, a lower one 
for the products of all British states and dependencies, a 
higher one for those of the outside world. The amount 
of this preference would be a matter of bargain to be settled 
by some future Imperial Conference, not foredoomed to 
failure, and preceded by careful preliminary investigation 
and negotiations. It might be twenty-five, or thirty-three, 
or even fifty per cent. And whatever it was, I think we 
should reserve the right also to give a preference, but never 
of the same amount, to any foreign country which was 
willing to give us some substantial equivalent. It need 
not be a general preference ; it might be the removal or 
reduction of some particular duties. I may say I do not 
myself like the idea of engaging in tariff wars. I do not 
believe in prohibitive or penal tariffs. But I do believe 
in having something to give to those who treat us well, 
something to withhold from those who treat us badly. At 
present, as you are weU aware. Great Britain is the one 
great nation which is treated with absolute disregard by 
foreign countries in framing their tariffs. They know that 
however badly they treat us they have nothing to lose by 
it, and so we go to the wall on every occasion. 

And now, though there is a great deal more to be said, 
I feel I must not trespass much further on your patience. 



208 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 29, 

But there is one objection to Tariff Reform which is con- 
stantly made, and which is at once so untrue and so dam- 
aging, that before sitting down, I should like to say a few 
words about it. We are told that this is an attempt to 
transfer the burden of a part of our taxation from the 
shoulders of the rich to those of the poor. If that were 
true, it would be fatal to Tariff Reform, and I for one would 
have nothing to do with it. But it is not true. There is 
no proposal to reduce, and I believe there is no possibility 
of reducing, the burden which at present falls on the 
shoulders of the upper and middle classes in the shape of 
direct taxation. On the other hand, I do not believe 
there is much room for increasing it — ^though I think it 
can be increased in one or two directions — ^without conse- 
quences which the poorer classes would be the first to feel. 
Excise duties, which are mainly paid by those classes, are 
already about as high as they can be. It foUows that for 
any increase of revenue, beyond the ordinary growth 
arising from increase of wealth and population, you must 
look, at least to a great extent, to Customs duties. And 
the tendency of the time is towards increased expenditure, 
aU of it, mind you — and I do not complain of the fact — 
due to the effort to improve the condition of the mass of 
the people. It is thus no question of shifting existing 
burdens, it is a question of distributing the burden of new 
expenditure of which the mass of the people will derive 
the benefit. And if that new expenditure must, as I think 
I have shown, be met, at least in large part, by Customs 
duties, which method of raising these duties is more in the 
interest of the poorer classes — our present system, which 
enhances enormously the price of a few articles of universal 
consumption, like tea and sugar and tobacco, or a tariff 
spread over a much greater number of articles at a much 
lower rate ? Beyond aU doubt or question, the mass of 
the people would be better off under the latter system. 
Even assuming — as I will for the sake of argument, though 
I do not admit it — ^that the British consumer pays the 
whole of the duty on imported foreign goods competing 



1907] A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY 209 

with British goods, is it not evident that the poorer classes 
of the community would pay a smaller proportion of Customs 
duties under a tariff which included a great number of 
foreign manufactured articles, at present entirely free, and 
largely the luxuries of the rich, than they do, when Customs 
duties are restricted to a few articles of universal con- 
sumption ? 

And that is at the same time the answer to the mis- 
leading, and often dishonest, outcry about ' taxing the 
food of the people,' about the big loaf and little loaf, and 
all the rest of it. The construction of a sensible all-round 
tariff presents many difficulties, but there is one difficulty 
which it does not present, and that is the difficulty of so 
adjusting your duties that the total proportion of them 
falling upon the wage-earning classes shall not be increased. 
I for one regard such an adjustment as a postulate in any 
scheme of Tariff Reform. And just one other argument 
— and I recommend it especially to those working-class 
leaders who are so vehement in their denunciation of 
Tariff Reform. Is it of no importance to the people, whom 
they especially claim to represent, that our fiscal policy 
should lean so heavily in favour of the foreign and against 
the British producer ? If they regard that as a matter 
of indifference, I think they will come to find in time that 
the mass of the working classes do not agree with them. 
But be that as it may, it is certain that I, for one, do not 
advocate Tariff Reform in the interests of the rich, but 
in the interests of the whole nation, and therefore neces- 
sarily of the working classes, who are the majority of the 
nation. 

GUILDFORD.— October 29, 1907 

A Constructive Policy 

[At a dinner held under the auspices of the Surrey Liberal Unionist 
Association and in reply to the toast of ' The Unionist Cause.'] 

I AM very sensible of the honour of being called on to reply 
for the Unionist cause, but I approach the task with some 
diffidence, not to say trepidation. I feel very conscious 

o 



210 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 29, 

that I am not a very good specimen of a party man. It 
is not that I do not hold strong opinions on many public 
questions — in fact, that is the very trouble. My opinions 
are too strong to fit well into any recognised programme. 
I suffer from an inveterate habit, which is partly congenital, 
but which has been developed by years spent in the service 
of the Crown, of looking at public questions from other 
than party points of view. And I am too old to unlearn it. 

For a man so constituted there is evidently only a 
limited role in political life. But he may have his uses 
all the same, if you take him for what he is, and not for 
what he is not, and does not pretend to be. If he does 
not speak with the weight and authority of a party leader, 
he is at least free from the embarrassments by which a 
party leader is beset, and unhampered by the caution 
which a party leader is bound to exercise. He commits 
nobody but himself, and therefore he can afford to speak 
with a bluntness which is denied to those whose utter- 
ances commit many thousands of other people. And I 
am not sure whether the present moment is not one at 
which the unconventional treatment of public questions 
may not be specially useful ; so, whether it be as an inde- 
pendent Unionist or as a friendly outsider — in whichever 
light you like to regard me — I venture to contribute my 
mite to the discussion. 

Having now made my position clear, I will at once 
plunge Ml medias res with a few artless observations. You 
hear all this grumbling which is going on just now against 
the Unionist leader. Well, gentlemen, a party which is 
in low water always does grumble at its leader. I have 
known this sort of thing happen over and over again in 
my own lifetime. And the consequence is, it is all like 
water on a duck's back to me ; it makes no impression 
on me whatsoever. I remember as long back as the late 
sixties and early seventies the Conservative party were 
ceaselessly grumbhng at Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr. 
Disraeli, right up to his greatest victory and the com- 
mencement of his longest tenure of power — almost up to 



1907] A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY 211 

the moment when he became the permanent idol of the 
Conservative party. I remember how the Liberals grumbled 
at Mr. Gladstone from 1873 and 1874, almost up to the 
opening of the Midlothian campaign. Again, I remember 
how the Conservatives grumbled at Lord Salisbury, from 
the first moment of his accession to the leadership right 
up to 1885. I can recall as well as if it were yesterday a 
young Tory friend of mine — he has become a distinguished 
man since, and I am not going to give him away — telling 
me, who was at that time a Liberal, in the year of grace 
1883 or 1884, that it was absolutely hopeless for the Tory 
party ever to expect to come back into power with such 
a leader as Lord Salisbury. He called him a ' Professor.' 
He said, ' No doubt he is a very able man and an excellent 
speaker, but he is a man of science. He has no popular 
gifts whatever. There is not a ghost of a chance of a 
Conservative victory so long as he is in command.' Yet 
this was not more than two years before Lord Salisbury 
commenced a series of premierships which kept him, for 
some thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the 
helm of the State. 

With all these experiences to look back upon, it is reaUy 
impossible for me to be much affected by the passing 
wave of dissatisfaction with Mr. Balfour. Men of first- 
rate ability and character are rare. Still rarer are men 
who, having those qualities, also have the knack of com- 
pelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House 
of Commons. When a party possesses a leader with all 
these gifts, it is not likely to change him in a hurry. 

But if I refuse to take a gloomy view of the Unionist 
leadership, I must admit that I am not altogether an 
optimist about the immediate prospects of Unionism. 
There is no doubt a bright side to the picture as well as 
a less encouraging one. The bright side, from the party 
point of view, is afforded by the hopeless chaos of opinion 
in the ranks of our opponents — ^by the total absence of any 
clear conviction or definite line whatever in the counsels 
of the Government, which causes Ministers to dash wildly 



212 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 29. 

from measure to measure in endeavouring to satisfy first 
one section and then another section of their motley follow- 
ing, and which prevents them from ever giving really 
adequate attention to any one of their proposals. 

I am not speaking of Ministers individually. Granted 
that some of them have done excellent work at the heads 
of their several departments — I think it would not be fair 
to deny that — I am thinking of their collective policy, 
and especially of their legislative efforts. For monuments 
of clumsy opportunism, commend me to the legislative 
failures, and, for the matter of that, to most of the legis- 
lative achievements, of the last two years. 

So far so good. Unionists cannot complain of what 
the Government is doing for them. And on the negative 
side of pohcy — in their duty as a mere Opposition — their 
course is clear. It is a fundamental article of their faith 
to maintain the authority of the Imperial Parliament in 
Ireland. But that authority can be set aside by the tolera- 
tion of lawlessness just as much, and in a worse way, 
than by the repeal of the Union. And such toleration is 
the rule to-day. There may be no violent crime, but 
there is open and widespread defiance of the law and inter- 
ference with the elementary rights of law-abiding people. 
It is a demoralising state of affairs, and one to which no 
good citizen in any part of the United Kingdom, however 
little he may be personally affected by it, can afford to 
be indifferent. Once let it be granted that any popular 
movement, which is not strong enough to obtain an altera- 
tion of the law by regular means, can simply set the law 
aside in practice, and you are at the beginning of general 
anarchy. 

Unionists have to fight for a restoration of the respect 
for law in Ireland in the interest of the whole kingdom. 
And they may have to fight also, it appears, against 
the abrogation of our existing constitution in favour of 
a system of quinquennial dictatorships. For that and 
nothing else is involved in the proposal to reduce the House 
of Lords to impotence and put nothing in its place. I am 



1907] A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY 213 

not concerned to represent the present constitution of the 
House of Lords as perfect. I have always been of opinion 
that a more representative and therefore a stronger second 
chamber was desirable. But that we can afford to do 
without any check on the House of Commons, especially 
since the removal of all checks upon the power of those 
who from time to time control the House of Commons, 
to rush through any measures they please without the 
possibility of an appeal to the people — that is a proposition 
which no man with any knowledge of history or any respect 
for constitutional government can possibly defend. To 
resist such a proposal as that is not fighting for a party ; 
it is not fighting for a class. It is fighting for the stability 
of society, for the fundamental rights of the whole nation. 

I say, then, that on the negative side, in the things it 
is called upon to resist, the Unionist party is strong and 
fortunate. But are we to be content with that ? Should 
we not all like to feel that we appealed for the confidence 
of the people on the merits of our own policy, and not 
merely on the demerits of our opponents ? That, I take 
it, is the feeling at the bottom of what men are saying on 
all hands just now — that the Unionist party ought to have 
a constructive policy. Now, if by a constructive policy 
is meant a string of promises, a sort of Newcastle programme, 
then I can well imagine any wise statesmen, especially if 
they happened to be in Opposition, thinking twice before 
they committed themselves to it. But if by a constructive 
policy is meant a definite set of principles, a clear attitude 
to the questions which most agitate the public mind, a 
sympathetic grasp of popular needs, and a readiness to 
indicate the extent to which, and the fines on which, you 
think it possible and desirable to satisfy them — then I 
agree that the Unionist party ought to have such a policy. 
And I venture to say that, if it has such a policy, the fact 
is not yet sufficiently apparent to the popular mind, or 
perhaps I should say, speaking as one of the populace, to 
my mind. 

Many people think that it is sufficient for the purpose — 



214 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 29, 

that it is possible to conduct a victorious campaign with 
the single watchword ' Down with Socialism.' Well, I 
am not fond of mere negatives. I do not like fighting an 
abstract noun. My objection to anti-Socialism as a plat- 
form is that Socialism means so many different things. 
On this point I agree with Mr. Asquith. I will wait to 
denounce Socialism till I see what form it takes. Some- 
times it is synonymous with robbery, and to robbery, open 
or veiled, boldly stalking in the face of day or hiding itself 
under specious phrases. Unionists are, as a matter of course, 
opposed. But mere fidelity to the eighth Commandment 
is not a constructive policy, and Socialism is not neces- 
sarily synonymous with robbery. Correctly used, the 
word only signifies a particular view of the proper relation 
of the State to its citizens — a tendency to substitute public 
for private ownership, or to restrict the freedom of indi- 
vidual enterprise in the interests of the public. But there 
are some forms of property which we all admit should be 
public and not private, and the freedom of individual 
enterprise is already limited by a hundred laws. Socialism 
and Individualism are opposing principles, which enter 
in various proportions into the constitution of every 
civilised society ; it is merely a question of degree. One 
community is more sociahstic than another. The same 
community is more socialistic at one time than at another. 
This country is far more socialistic than it was fifty years 
ago, and for most of the changes in that direction the 
Unionist and the Tory party are responsible. The Factory 
Acts are one instance ; free education is another. The 
danger, as it seems to me, of the Unionist party going off 
on a crusade against Socialism is that in the heat of that 
crusade it may neglect, or appear to neglect, those social 
evils, of which honest Socialism is striving, often, no doubt, 
by unwise means, to effect a cure. If the Unionist party 
did that, it would be unfaithful to its own best traditions 
from the days of Sybil and Goningshy to the present 
time. 
The true antidote to revolutionary Socialism is practical 



1907] A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY 215 

social reform. That is no claptrap phrase — although it may 
sound so ; there is a great historical truth behind it. The 
revolutionary Socialist — I caU him revolutionary because 
he wants to alter the whole basis of society — would like 
to get rid of all private property, except, perhaps, our 
domestic pots and pans. He is averse from private enter- 
prise. He is going absurdly too far ; but what gave birth 
to his doctrine ? The abuse of the rights of private pro- 
perty, the cruelty and the failure of the scramble for gain, 
which mark the reign of a one-sided Individualism. If 
we had not gone much too far in one direction, we should 
not have had this extravagant reaction in the other. But 
do not let us lose our heads in face of that reaction. While 
resisting the revolutionary propaganda, let us be more, 
and not less, strenuous in removing the causes of it. 

You may think I am now talking pure Radicalism. 
Well, but it is not to the objects which many Radicals have 
at heart that we, as Unionists, need take exception. Why 
should we make them a present of those good objects ? 
Old age pensions ; the multiplication of small landholders 
and, let me add, landowners ; the resuscitation of agricul- 
ture ; and, on the other hand, better housing in our crowded 
centres ; town planning ; sanitary conditions of labour ; 
the extinction of sweating ; the physical training of the 
people ; continuation schools — ^these and all other measures 
necessary to preserve the stamina of the race and develop 
its intelligence and productive power — have we not as 
good a right to regard these as our objects, aye, and in 
many cases a better right, than the supporters of the 
Government have ? 

It is not these objects which we deprecate. On the 
contrary, they have our ardent sympathy. What we do 
deprecate is the spirit in which they are so often preached 
and pursued. No progress is going to be made — quite 
the contrary — by stirring up class hatred or trying to 
rob Peter in order to pay Paul. It is not true that you 
cannot benefit one class without taking from another class 
— still less true that by taking from one you necessarily 



216 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 29. 

benefit another. The national income, the sum total of 
all our productive activities, is capable of being enormously 
increased or diminished by wise or foolish policy. For it 
does not only depend on the amount of capital and labour. 
A number of far subtler factors enter into the account — 
science, organisation, energy, credit, confidence, the spirit 
in which men set about their business. The one thing 
which would be certain to diminish that income, and to 
recoil on all of us, would be that war of classes which many 
people seem anxious to stir up. Nothing could be more 
fatal to prosperity, and to the fairest hopes of social progress, 
than if the great body of the upper and middle classes of 
the community had cause to regard that progress as indis- 
solubly associated with an attack upon themselves. And 
that is why, if reforms such as I have indicated are costly — 
as they will be costly — ^you must find some better way of 
providing for them than by merely giving another turn 
to the income-tax screw, or just adding so much per cent, 
to the estate duty. 

From my point of view, social reform is a national affair. 
All classes benefit by it, not only those directly affected. 
And therefore all should contribute according to their 
means. I do not in any way object to the rich being made 
to contribute, even for purposes in which they are not 
directly interested. What I do object to is, that the great 
body of the people should not contribute to them. It is 
thoroughly vicious in principle to divide the nation, as 
many of the Radical and Labour men want to divide it, 
into two sections — a majority which only calls the tune, 
and a minority which only pays the piper. 

I own I am aghast at the mean opinion which many 
politicians seem to have of the mass of their working fellow- 
countrymen, when they approach them with this crude 
sort of bribery, offering them everything for nothing, 
always talking to them of their claims upon the State, and 
never of their duties towards it. This is a democratic 
country. ' It is their State and their Empire — theirs to 
possess, theirs to control, but theirs also to support and to 



1907] A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY 217 

defend. And I for one have such faith in the common 
sense and fair-mindedness of the British people that I 
believe you have only to convince them that you have a 
really sound national poUcy, and they will rally to it, 
without having to be bought by promises of a penny off 
this and twopence off the other — a sort of appeal, I regret 
to say, which is not only confined to Radical orators, but 
in which Unionists also are sometimes too apt to indulge. 

And now, gentlemen, only one word in conclusion — a 
brief and inadequate reference to a vast subject, but one 
to which I am at all times and seasons specially bound to 
refer. After all, my chief quarrel with the Radical party 
— ^not with aU of them — I do not say that for a moment — 
but with a far too large and influential section — is their 
anti -patriotism. I use the word advisedly. It is not that 
they are unpatriotic in the sense of having no affection for 
their country. It is that they are deliberately and on 
principle — I do not asperse their motives ; I do not question 
their sincerity and conviction — anti-patriotic, opposed to 
national as distinct from cosmopolitan ideals. They are 
not zealous for national defence ; they have no faith in 
the Empire ; they love to show their impartiality by taking 
sides against their own country ; they object to their 
children being taught respect for the flag. But we Unionists 
are not cosmopolitans but Britons. We have no envy or 
ill-will towards other nations ; a man is not a worse neigh- 
bour because he loves his own family. But we do hold that 
it is not our business to look after others. It is our business 
to look after ourselves and our dependencies, and the great 
kindred communities who own allegiance to the British 
flag. We want to draw closer to them, to stand together ; 
and we believe that the strength and the unity of the 
British Empire are of vital and practical importance to 
every citizen. In all our propaganda, and in all our policy, 
let us continue to give that great principle a foremost place. 



218 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13. 

EDINBURGH— NovEMBEE 13, 1907. 

Geography and Statecraft 

[The Inaugural Address of the year delivered before the Royal Scottish 
Geographical Society in Edinburgh, the Lord Justice-General — Lord 
Dunedin — ^presiding.] 

There is one respect certainly — no doubt there are many 
others, but they are less material to the present point — 
in which I am at a great disadvantage compared with the 
distinguished men who have on previous occasions delivered 
this Inaugural Address. My predecessors have all been 
men who, either by virtue of their scientific eminence, or 
of their practical achievements as explorers of the earth 
or air, might justly lay claim to the title of Masters in 
Geography. I can advance no such claim ; and while I 
am deeply sensible of the honour of being permitted to 
address this learned society, I am a little frightened at my 
own boldness in avaihng myself of the opportunity which 
your extreme indulgence has afforded me. 

My excuse must be that, if I have no right to call myself 
a geographer, I am at least a firm believer in the value of 
geographical studies, and in their educational as well as 
their practical value. And so I venture to offer myself 
as a witness on the side of your science in the controversy, 
which is still going on, as to its right to a place among the 
recognised branches of the higher learning. If that ques- 
tion were to be submitted to a jury of men whose lives had 
been mainly devoted to affairs of State, I should have no 
doubt as to the verdict. I do not say that the opinion of 
men of this class should be alone decisive, but it is at least 
of some value. And I am confident that there are very 
few of them who would not agree with me in assigning to 
geography, as now pursued and taught, a high place among 
the studies which go to make up what the Germans call 
Staatswissenschaft, a term for which I know no exact 
English equivalent, but which we may perhaps translate 
into ' Political Science ' or the ' Political Sciences.' 

Not that I have any wish to insist on including geography 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 219 

among the political or moral sciences as distinct from the 
physical — if you will forgive my using these somewhat 
clumsy and inadequate but still necessary labels. Indeed 
it is one of the strong points about geography, that it is 
not easy to classify in this fashion. It possesses, as has 
been truly said by one of its votaries, a synthetic value, 
or, to put it in simpler language, it forms an important 
link in the great chain of knowledge, and constitutes a 
meeting-point of the moral and physical sciences. It is 
one of the corner-pillars, if I may so express myself, of the 
Temple of Knowledge. You have only to think how 
closely it touches geology, and for the matter of that, 
botany and zoology also, on the one side, and history on 
the other. If I confine myself to-night to one of its aspects, 
I must not be thought to ignore or undervalue the others. 

So much to prevent misunderstanding. And now only 
one more prefatory observation. The claim which I think 
geography can confidently advance to-day to an honour- 
able and important place among the sciences could perhaps 
not have been advanced with anything like the same force 
one hundred or even fifty years ago. For the right of any 
study to such a place depends, I take it, on two things : 
the importance of its subject-matter, and the manner in 
which the study is conducted. Now as to the importance 
of the subject-matter of geography there could never be 
any dispute. But its methods were not always calculated 
to command equal respect. When I think of the maps, 
the text-books, and, worse still, the geographical lessons 
of my own childhood, I recall things to which the term 
' scientific ' could by no legitimate stretch of language 
have been applied. Great indeed has been the progress 
in the methods of geographical study during my own 
life-time, though no doubt the beginning of improvement 
dates further back. For something like a century a series 
of eminent men, from Humboldt onwards, men imbued 
with the highest scientific ideals, have been busy interpret- 
ing and systematising the ever-increasing mass of geographi- 
cal knowledge. If our own country has been especially 



220 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

rich in great explorers, other nations, and above all the 
Germans, have helped to raise the status of geography by 
a philosophic treatment of the new as well as the old 
material. And it cannot now be long before geography 
obtains on all hands that full recognition as a science, to 
which its modern developments so amply entitle it. 

But I am not going to attempt to trace the history of 
those developments to-night. My humbler task is to try 
and illustrate the value of geographical knowledge, and of 
the geographical habit of mind, in the sphere of govern- 
ment and administration. We have had quite recently 
a brilliant example of what that knowledge and that habit 
of mind, when wedded to history and to a practical experi- 
ence of great affairs, are capable of producing, in the lecture 
on ' Frontiers,' which was delivered at Oxford some ten 
days ago by Lord Curzon. Or, to take another instance, 
which touches more nearly the field of my own personal 
experience, there have been few State papers published 
this year which rival in interest Lord Selborne's Review 
of the Present Mutual Relations of the British South African 
Colonies. The memorandum, in which the present High 
Commissioner discusses those relations, is substantially 
a plea, and a very earnest and effective plea, for Federa- 
tion. It would be quite beyond the scope of this address 
to examine that plea in detail, but there is one point about 
it to which I wish to call attention, because it is so apt an 
illustration of the subject we are considering to-night. 
The point to which I refer is the great importance which 
is attached, and rightly attached, in this memorandum to 
purely geographical considerations. The argument for 
Federation, strong in any case, on racial, economic, and 
other grounds, becomes absolutely irresistible when you 
consider the physical conformation of the country. I am 
not thinking merely of the contiguity of the several states. 
Two countries may be contiguous and yet sharply divided 
by some natural obstacle. Over and over again in history 
such obstacles have delayed or prevented the political union 
even of kindred communities. But in the case of South 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 221 

Africa there are no such obstacles at all. In only one 
instance, that of the Basutoland enclave, does the political 
boundary correspond to any extent with natural facts. 
Basutoland is bounded for more than half its circumfer- 
ence by formidable mountain barriers, and has in all respects 
a more homogeneous character than any other South 
African territory. But almost all other South African 
frontiers are, from the geographical point of view, quite 
negligible, indeed in some cases quite absurd. They are 
the result of historical accidents, not to say of political 
blunders ; in some cases, perhaps, of justifiable political 
expedients, but never of physical factors of any real import- 
ance. No doubt there are striking physical contrasts 
between different portions of South Africa. I shall have 
to refer to them presently, and they greatly reinforce my 
argument, for no statesmanship can be successful which 
fails to take account of them. But they stand in no rela- 
tion whatever to the political divisions. Indeed it would 
almost seem as if a perverse destiny had chosen to unite 
the disparate, as it has certainly sometimes divided the 
wholly similar and consanguineous, in carving out the 
strange amorphous lumps of territory which constitute 
the South African states. 

In saying this, I must not be regarded as contending that 
it is any longer possible altogether to ignore these political 
divisions. History has her rights as well as geography, and 
we cannot escape from the consequences of the accidents, 
the blunders or the devices of the past. ' Le mieux est 
I'ennemi du bien,' and in attempting at this time of day 
a complete fusion of the South African states, even assum- 
ing such a fusion to be desirable, statesmen might easily 
imperil the success of that strong movement towards closer 
union which, wisely directed, is bound to be productive 
of most beneficent results. But I will say no more on 
this point. To do so would be to allow myself to be drawn 
into a political discussion wholly alien to my present object. 
That object is merely to consider some of the most striking 
physical idiosyncrasies of South Africa, and to consider 



222 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

them as illustrating the necessity of constant close attention 
to the geographical factor on the part of statesmen. 

I fear that the limits of my time will hardly allow me to 
do more than take a very cursory glance at those idiosyn- 
crasies, and that my theme may suffer in inteUigibihty 
and in interest from excessive compression. But there 
are at least a good many of my hearers who will be able to 
fill up from their own knowledge some of the many important 
features of the landscape, which I must pass by unnoticed 
in my breathless dash from the slopes of Table Mountain 
to the southern shores of Tanganyika. For that, and 
nothing less, is the extent of territory which has to be 
passed under review. I see that that distinguished traveller, 
Mr. E. F. Knight, in his recently published book on Over- 
Sea Britain, defines South Africa as ' all Africa to the south 
of the Congo basin.' I do not know that in a strictly geo- 
graphical sense that is not rather too liberal a definition. 
To my mind the southern edge of the basin of the Zambesi 
is a better dividing line, from the point of view of physical 
conditions, than the southern edge of the basin of the 
Congo. But there can be no doubt that, pohtically and 
administratively. South Africa does at present straddle 
on right up to the latter point. And this, indeed, is one 
of the greatest drawbacks of British South Africa — its 
unmanageable shape, the great interminable wedge driven 
from south to north into the heart of the continent with 
such inadequate outlets to east and west. You go from 
latitude 34° to latitude 8°, from a climate of South European 
mildness to the heart of the tropics, a distance of more 
than two thousand miles ; but for three -fourths of the 
distance on one side, and for more than two-thirds on both 
sides, you are flanked by foreign states. Where was 
geography when we refused to look after Namaqualand 
and Damaraland, and did not think it worth while to give 
thirty thousand pounds for Delagoa Bay ? The courage, 
the enterprise, and the farsightedness of individual Britons 
have indeed done wonders to counteract the laches of 
national policy. Livingstone, Rhodes, John Mackenzie — 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 223 

to name only the foremost — have left their mark upon the 
pohtical map of Africa to a far greater extent than even 
the ablest and most energetic officers of the British Crown. 
But the shouldering of national responsibilities by private 
citizens, however splendid as a display of human courage 
and energy, is not without its drawbacks. Our vast South 
African dominion bears in its configuration, no less than 
in its haphazard administrative arrangements, the traces 
of the unscientific spirit, in which Governments have trifled 
with the problems which only systematic governmental 
action can adequately solve. The extension of British 
authority from the Orange River to Tanganyika has been 
accomphshed by the most extraordinary series of make- 
shifts in the history of the world. Many of the resulting 
tangles will, no doubt, be straightened out by Federation, 
when it comes. But, behind the question of the Federa- 
tion of British South Africa properly so called, complicated 
in itself, yet at least engaging the thoughts of all the ablest 
men whom the country possesses, lies the question of the 
future of her vast tropical annexe — not South Africa at 
all in a geographical sense, though now administratively 
tagged on to her — and that is a matter to which no one, 
whether in South Africa or in Great Britain, seems dis- 
posed to give the slightest attention. Yet for geographers 
it is surely full of interest. The causes which have led to 
the phenomenally rapid advance of the outposts of Empire 
in Southern Central Africa, and the consequences involved 
in it, are so striking an illustration of the interaction of 
geographical and political influences, that I venture to 
direct your attention to them for a few minutes. 

The dominant physical fact about South and South- 
Central Africa is the great irregular tableland which con- 
stitutes so large a portion of it, and which carries the climate 
of the temperate zone into the heart of the tropics. The 
great average elevation of the country, with its vast stretches 
of undulating but not often mountainous high land, is the 
cause of most of the distinctive features of its life. Histori- 
cally, economically, politically, nothing is really intelligible, 



224 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

as long as the significance of that primary fact is not fully 
grasped. In South Africa, men of European race thrive 
and multiply exceedingly in latitudes which are generally 
fatal or debilitating to the white man. Their splendid 
physique is due to the bracing air of these large expanses 
of lofty open country. But inasmuch as the high table- 
land is not the whole of South Africa, but is flanked and 
intersected by regions of lower altitude, which are tropical 
or sub-tropical not only in latitude but in climate, the white 
race is here inextricably intermingled with coloured races, 
equally prolific, equally at home in the country, which 
show no signs of succumbing to the European impact. 
Indeed, in one respect the Bantu tribes, or at any rate the 
finest of them, have the advantage over men of European 
origin, for they seem to flourish alike in the lower and the 
higher altitudes ; whereas, except in the extreme south, 
the white man is never at his best on the low ground. From 
this intermingling of ahen races, ranging from the most 
highly civilised to the almost barbarous, have arisen social 
and political problems of the greatest complexity, and all 
South African history is woven on that woof. 

But I must not be led astray by the innumerable topics 
of interest which the high plateau suggests. My present 
concern is with a single feature of it — the fact, namely, 
that it is most easily ascended from the southern end. 
Even the central and northern portions are, as a rule, 
more accessible from the south, despite the greater dis- 
tances, than they are over much shorter distances from the 
east and west. For from the west, though the slopes are 
favourable, the intense aridity of the country makes progress 
diflicult or impossible, and on the east there is a tremendous 
mountain barrier to be climbed. No doubt that barrier 
is not and never was impassable, and in recent times it has 
been crossed by no fewer than three lines of railway, the 
existence of which will greatly affect the course of future 
development. But even with the railway, and much more 
before the railway, the approach from the south was incom- 
parably easier and more natural than from the east. It is 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 225 

like the difference between climbing a steep ladder and 
walking up a comparatively easy flight of steps. Add to 
this the fact that the Em:opean settlers of the south had 
their base in a favourable climate (for only on the extreme 
south and south-west is the low-lying coast-belt temperate 
and healthy for men of white race), while the European 
settlers on the east had their base on a hot and humid shore. 
And bear in mind, further, that the settlers of the south 
belonged to sturdy Teutonic races, in whom the tendency 
to expansion was still strong, while the settlers on the east, 
if they could be called settlers at all, belonged to a small 
nation in which, despite its glorious past, the exploring 
and colonising impulse was exhausted. 

There you have, of course only in the broadest outline, 
the causes which led to the colonisation of South Africa 
from the south, the forward pressure of European immigra- 
tion, if I may so express myself, on vertical rather than on 
horizontal lines. It was up the series of lofty terraces, which 
lead from the south and south-west to the centre of the 
great plateau, that Europe first invaded South Africa, and 
then spread, as it is still spreading, its colonists to right 
and left over the most eligible portions of it. It was a 
great continuous northward movement, no doubt with a 
considerable lilt, especially in its early stages, to the east, 
that is to the better watered and therefore more fertile 
side of the tableland, but stiU in its general direction a 
broad wave sweeping steadily towards the Polar Star. 
On and on, ' with painful steps and slow,' went the pioneers 
of European civilisation, until they could just discern on 
the far horizon the constellations which had shone over 
the heads of their fathers in their ancient homes — strange 
constellations to most of them, who had looked up since 
infancy at Achernar and Canopus and the Pointers and 
the Southern Cross. 

At first, as I have said, in the days of the ox-wagon, 
the movement was very slow. It took two centuries 
before the most northerly outpost of continuous European 
settlement had reached the edge of the tropics, and even 

p 



226 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13. 

then that settlement was very thin and partial, with great 
bordering expanses of wilderness or of barbarism, and with 
long distances between the principal centres of population 
— all circumstances tending to estrange the settlers from 
the old European lands, the cradles of their race, and even 
from one another. But the great point is, that by the 
middle of last century, just two hundred years after Van 
Riebeeck had established the first permanent settlement 
at the foot of Table Mountain, the invasion from the south 
had got a real grip of the centre of the great tableland, and 
was twelve hundred miles on its way to the heart of Africa, 
while the European planters in the east had little more 
than a nominal hold even of the coast-land, and had made 
no impression on the elevated interior of Africa at all. 

And then came the railway, by far the most potent of 
modern inventions in transforming the life of mankind, 
potent and revolutionising everywhere, but most of all in 
thinly peopled and newly settled countries, and, among 
these, of incomparable potency in South Africa, owing to 
the vast distances which separate its chief centres of 
European settlement, and to its almost total lack of navig- 
able waterways. Great as is the influence of the iron road 
everywhere, and innumerable as are its effects, there is no 
portion, I believe, of the whole habitable globe in which 
its importance, compared with that of all other factors, 
is so great, so overshadowing, as in South Africa. But for 
the first twenty or thirty years railway development in 
South Africa, which then moved at a snail's pace, compared 
with the tremendous rush of recent years, was busy in link- 
ing up the coast ports with comparatively near and long- 
established inland places. If it followed the course of 
northern expansion at all, it followed it at first for a special 
reason, namely, in order to get at those centres of mineral 
wealth which happened — a most momentous fact — to be 
situate far inland, far to the north, right on the line of that 
advance of which I have been speaking. And so it came 
about that when, some five-and-twenty years ago, the 
great scramble for Africa began ; when the European 



igo7] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 227 

nations which were already in possession of long-neglected 
strips of the African coast woke up, and fresh European 
nations dashed forward to secure the yet unappropriated 
parts of it ; when one and all, old occupants and new- 
comers, began to push on their boundaries with might and 
main from every available starting-point, until they met 
and not infrequently collided in the centre — at this critical 
juncture the railway from Cape Town was already at 
Kimberley, upwards of five hundred miles on the way to 
the north, and, more important still, on the crown of the 
tableland, with the great gradual climb already accom- 
plished, and hundreds upon hundreds of miles of compara- 
tively level going in front of it. By virtue of that railway, 
coming from the oldest British port, and passing in its whole 
course through settled British territory. Great Britain had a 
big start in the race for Southern Central Africa, just as by 
virtue of her occupation of Egypt she had a similar start 
in the race for the Northern Central regions, which contain 
the head- waters of the Nile. 

Continuous settlement for twelve hundred miles from 
south to north and a railway, not indeed so far advanced 
as that, but still far advanced, and above all, having over- 
come the chief difficulty of all railways from the coast to 
the centre of Africa, the great climb ; these were the advan- 
tages which the owners of the southern littoral possessed, 
as compared with those of the eastern and western coasts, 
in their converging movements towards the centre of the 
sub-continent. And thus British authority was pushed 
forward from the southern extremity of Africa up more 
than a third of its whole length before other Powers, advanc- 
ing from the east and west, brought their frontiers together 
in front of it and so finally barred the road for any further 
advance. From Cape Town to the furthermost point of 
North-Eastern Rhodesia is more than two thousand miles 
as the crow flies, and I need not say how many more as 
the traveller has to go. But the whole breadth of Africa 
at that point is only about seventeen hundred miles, and 
the distance from the borders of North-Eastern Rhodesia 



228 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

to the nearest point on the sea-coast is only about four 
hundred. No doubt it is true that this distant, protruding 
spur of our vast South and South-Central African dominion 
has been approached rather from the east, by the Zambesi 
and Shire Valleys, than up the central plateau. But it 
is also true that our authority in that corner would hardly 
have been established, and could with difficulty be main- 
tained, if the country between the four lakes, Nyassa, 
Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and Mweru, were not connected 
at its south-western angle with that huge oblong block 
of British Colonies and Protectorates and Spheres of Influ- 
ence, which now stretches from Cape Town to Katanga. 
And to the boundary of Katanga, at any rate, we have got 
by the direct northward movement, though the distance 
thither is just twice as far that way as it is from either the 
eastern or the western coast. 

That is the story in its simplest form. Of course in its 
details it is vastly more complicated. And there is one 
detail of such importance, that even in this hasty review I 
must just refer to it. When the scramble for Africa began 
in the early eighties. Great Britain, owing to past misunder- 
standings and mistakes, and to a policy which, among 
other things, ignored geography, and tried to separate the 
inseparable, had lost control of the more important — eastern 
— half of the northward march of European colonisation, 
and its most advanced posts were no longer on British 
territory. In 1882-83, the Boer Republic on our right 
flank had pushed far ahead of the furthest limit of British 
authority and was some four hundred miles nearer to the 
centre of Africa. And the fear was that foreign Powers, 
avaihng themselves of the split between Boer and Briton, 
might use the Transvaal to bar the road to the further 
advance of British influence and civilisation. It was 
under the impulse of that fear that Rhodes made the great 
dash, or rather the series of great dashes, to the north, 
which have resulted in the extraordinary elongation of 
the British portion of South Africa. 

First came the march of the pioneers into Mashonaland 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 229 

in 1890, which interposed a belt of British settlement 
between the northern Transvaal and the Zambesi. Then 
followed in 1893 the Matabele War, and the subjection of 
the whole country up to that river. These events gave 
us the great regions now known as Southern Rhodesia. 
But Rhodes could not rest content with the boundary of 
the Zambesi. He was haunted by the thought of the 
rapidity with which all the vacant spaces of the world were 
being appropriated by one European Power or another, 
and he was bent on preserving as large an area as possible 
for his own countrymen. And so, before his death in 1902, 
despite failures of his own seeking, and interruptions for 
which he was not to blame — despite the Raid and the 
Rinderpest, the Matabele Rebellion and the great Boer 
War — he had succeeded in acquiring certain large trading 
and administrative rights beyond the Zambesi, up to the 
very confines of the Congo Free State, and in inducing the 
British Government to throw its segis over them. These 
are the countries now known as North-Western and North- 
Eastern Rhodesia, and, like Southern Rhodesia, virtually 
incorporated in the British Empire, though no doubt in a 
much more rudimentary stage in respect of development 
and administration. It had taken more than two hundred 
years to carry European authority from Cape Town to 
Kimberley. It took less than twenty to advance it from 
Kimberley northwards to a distance twice as great — a 
colossal achievement, which we owe to the energy, the 
daring, and the geographical imagination of a single man. 

And all the time the railway was being pushed forward 
with unexampled speed, as it has been since his death — 
not much less than a hundred miles a year on an average. 
Indeed, without the railway following close behind, any- 
thing like effective occupation would have been impossible. 
It is the fashion just now to decry the rapid extension of 
railways through these thinly peopled and as yet unpro- 
ductive regions, and to condemn them if they do not pay 
in a commercial sense. And no doubt the railways of 
Rhodesia, though they have been constructed with remark- 



230 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

able economy, will be some time before they can stand that 
test. But then it is an absurd test to apply to railways 
in a country where there are no other means of communica- 
tion, where they are the only roads, the indispensable con- 
ditions alike of economic progress and of civilised govern- 
ment, where they are creating the development which it 
is their ultimate destiny to serve. Were the Roman roads 
expected to pay in a commercial sense ? If railways were 
never to be built into the wilderness, the wilderness would 
remain what it was for all the centuries before railways 
were invented to conquer it. 

And now, perhaps, enough has been said to enable us to 
make a fair estimate of this latest stage in the European 
invasion of Africa from the south, to realise the causes of 
its feverish haste, the boldness of its conception, and at 
the same time its inevitable defects. It has been a move- 
ment along natural lines, but unduly accelerated by acci- 
dental political causes. But for the scramble for Africa, 
even the restless genius of Rhodes might not have gone 
so fast or so far. And while it is impossible not to admire 
the spectacle of this private citizen — for after the end of 
1895 he ceased to be even Prime Minister of the Cape — 
undertaking and financing a great enterprise of State, 
ensuring the concurrence of a reluctant Government by 
saving it all expense, and paying his way by a mixed appeal 
to the speculative instincts and the patriotic ambitions 
of his countrymen, it is no disparagement to him to say 
that this is not the best imaginable way in which an empire 
can be built. He followed the only lines possible under 
the circumstances. He spent his life in the task. Our 
gratitude is due to him for the vast opportunities which 
he created or preserved for us. But Southern and Northern 
Rhodesia alike will long bear the traces of the strange 
expedients which had to be adopted in getting them started, 
and a great many problems will have to be solved before 
either of them can be satisfactorily fitted into the frame- 
work of South Africa or of the Empire. 

On the future of Southern Rhodesia I have no intention 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 231 

to dwell. By however complicated a process, it is bound 
some day to become a part of self-governing South Africa. 
But its great tropical annexe presents features of a different 
character, and sooner or later we shall have to apply 
Mr. Haldane's prescription and do a little thinking about 
them. And when we do, a strange tangle of interests, 
and a difficult choice of alternative courses, will come up 
for consideration. First of all there are native rights, and 
in one part of the country at least — in Barotseland — the 
yet surviving, if truncated, authority of a native monarch 
who is one of the most meritorious of his kind. Then 
there are the commercial and administrative rights of the 
Chartered Company, the real rulers of the land. But they 
are not absolute rulers, for the Imperial Government has, 
through the High Commissioner, very wide and substantial 
if somewhat indefinite powers of control. And lastly, there 
rises in the distance the vision of a Federated South Africa, 
which may wish to sweep away all of these, and to govern 
the whole region free from any interference, as Tembuland 
and Pondoland are governed by Cape Colony, and as Zulu- 
land is governed by Natal. 

And no doubt there is much to be said for this solution, 
which is likely to commend itself, when the time comes, to 
any British Government, because it would be such a saving 
of trouble. But there is also much to be said against it, 
especially from the South African point of view. If I were 
a South African statesman, there are certain considera- 
tions connected with the gravest of all South African 
problems which might give me pause. South Africa has 
got her own native population to digest. It is not that 
they are absolutely so very numerous. The country could 
easily carry a much larger population, not only of whites 
but of blacks, and would economically, at least for the 
present, be all the better for a greater supply of black 
labour. But if not absolutely very numerous, the blacks at 
any rate greatly outnumber the whites, and they are in- 
creasing, to all appearance, quite as fast. Can it be to the 
interest of South Africa to annex to herself another great 



232 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 13, 

region peopled wholly by blacks, and tlius permanently 
to increase the disproportion of the two races within her 
confines ? It may be said that the healthy high plateau 
continues beyond the Zambesi, that white men will be 
able to make their permanent home there in appreciable 
numbers, and that therefore the distinctive features of 
South African life will be reproduced in those distant regions, 
and the whole country from the Southern Ocean to the 
Congo basin assume in time a more or less homogeneous 
character. For my own part, I greatly doubt the likeli- 
hood of such a result. The power of altitude to counteract 
the effects of latitude is an interesting question, about 
which no man can as yet afiord to speak very positively. 
I can imagine a Johannesburg on the Equator. I think 
it quite possible that there are in British East Africa con- 
siderable tracts which will carry a permanent white popu- 
lation. But one has yet to be satisfied that, with the 
exception of a few favoured spots, the same can be said 
of North-Western or North-Eastern Rhodesia. They seem 
rather to present the distinguishing features of a tropical 
colony or plantation, and such a colony is ever an ill-assorted 
yokefellow for those of the European self-governing type. 
Southern Rhodesia, or, at any rate, a certain portion of it, 
is already on the border-line between the two. Northern 
Rhodesia seems decidedly to cross that border-line. The 
present association of the two appears to be in the nature 
of a political accident or makeshift and not to be based on 
essentials. If that is so, it would not appear to be inevit- 
able, it may even be thought unnatural and undesirable 
that, when Southern Rhodesia is drawn, as she ultimately 
must be, and ought to be, into the South African group of 
states, she should carry her northern annexe along with her. 
On the other hand, there is no doubt the question of access. 
The region beyond the Zambesi is only accessible to us 
either through foreign territory on the east or through what 
will presently be a self-governing dominion, like Canada, 
Australia, or New Zealand, on the south. There would be 
something anomalous in the position of a Crown colony 



1907] GEOGRAPHY AND STATECRAFT 233 

or protectorate, which could not be reached directly from 
the sea or from some region of similar status to its own. 
Moreover, the railway, which will ultimately traverse this 
country from end to end, is a continuation of the Great 
Trunk Line of South Africa. There are thus, no doubt, 
considerations of great weight on either side, and we have, 
perhaps, cause to be grateful that, for the time being, 
Rhodesia is still in the possession of the Chartered Company, 
and that there is no need to settle the difficult question 
of its future distribution and administration in a hurry. 
The system of extending the bounds of Empire by the 
agency of Chartered Companies is open to many objections. 
There has been much in the methods of this particular 
company, especially during its earliest years, which it is 
impossible to regard with approval. But the British South 
Africa Company has at least two great claims on our grati- 
tude. It has kept a large and valuable portion of the Dark 
Continent under the British flag, and it has built up, in a 
remarkably short space of time, an administration which, 
if far from perfect, is at least competent, honest, and 
humane. Government by means of a company is neces- 
sarily a transient form of government. But in the case 
which we have been considering, it is a valuable stop-gap, 
valuable in maintaining a tolerable condition of affairs 
and affording time to work out with deliberation, and with 
a fuller knowledge than we yet possess of all the conditions 
of one of the least explored of habitable lands, the best 
permanent arrangements for its welfare. 

And now I see that, starting from certain wide general 
considerations, I have been led to dwell, at perhaps exces- 
sive length, on a single, limited, and remote, though not 
unimportant or uninteresting, problem. But I venture to 
hope that, in my method of approaching it, I may to some 
extent have illustrated my main proposition, which is the 
inextricable association of your science with the art of states- 
manship, and that in any views which I have propounded 
or suggested, be they right or wrong, I may at least not 
have offended against the spirit of scientific geography. 



234 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 15, 

EDINBURGH.— November 15, 1907 

Unionists and the Empire 

[At the annual general meeting of the East and North of Scotland 
Liberal Unionist Association,] 

I AM greatly reassured by the very kind reception which 
you have just given me. To tell the truth, I had been 
feeling a little alarmed at the fate which might await me 
in Edinburgh. From a faithful perusal of the Radical 
Press I had been led to believe that Scotland was seething 
with righteous indignation against that branch of the Legis- 
lature of which I am, it is true, only a humble and very 
recent member, but yet a member, and therefore involved in 
the general condemnation of the ruthless hereditary tyrants 
and oppressors of the people, the privileged landowning class, 
which is alleged to be so out of sympathy with the mass of 
their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it supplies 
many of the most popular candidates, not only of one 
party, at any General Election. Personally, I feel it rather 
hard to be painted in such black colours. There is no 
taint of hereditary privilege about me. I am not — I wish 
I were — the owner of broad acres, and I am in no way 
conscious of belonging to a specially favoured class. There 
are a great many of my fellow members in the House of 
Lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not 
by virtue of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, 
or, let me say in my own case, supposed services, to the 
State. And while we sit there — and here I venture, with 
all humility, to speak for all the members of that body, 
whether hereditary or created — we feel that we ought to 
deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our 
judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences 
to ourselves, and without allowing ourselves to be brow- 
beaten for not being different from what we are. We 
believe that we perform a useful and necessary function. 
We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to the good 
government of this country. We do not contend — cer- 
tainly I am myself very far from contending — that the 



1907] UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE 235 

existing Second Chamber is the best imaginable. Let 
there be a well-considered reform of the House of Lords, 
or even, if need be, an entirely different Second Chamber. 
But until you have got this better instrument, do not 
throw away the instrument which you have — the only 
defence, not of the privileges of a class, but of the rights 
of the whole nation, against hasty, ill-considered measures 
and against the subordination of permanent national 
interests to the temporary exigencies of a party. 

It is said that there is a permanent Conservative majority 
in the House of Lords. But then every Second Chamber 
is, and ought to be, conservative in temper. It exists to 
exercise a restraining influence, to ensure that great changes 
shaU not be made in fundamental institutions except by 
the deliberate will of the nation, and not as the outcome 
of a mere passing mood. And if the accusation is, that 
the House of Lords is too Conservative in a party sense — 
which is a different thing, I admit, from being Conserva- 
tive in the highest and best sense — that points not to doing 
away with the Second Chamber, but to making such a 
change in its composition as, while leaving it still powerful, 
stiU, above all, independent, will render it more repre- 
sentative of the permanent mind of the nation. 

But let me be permitted to observe that the instance 
relied on to prove that the House of Lords is in the pocket 
of the Conservative party is a very unfortunate instance. 
What is its offence ? It is said that the Lords rejected 
the Scottish Land Bill. But they did not reject the Scottish 
Land Bill. They were quite prepared to accept a portion 
of the Bill, and it is for the Government to answer to the 
people interested in that portion for their not having re- 
ceived the benefits which the Bill was presumably intended 
to bestow on them. What the Government did was to 
hold a pistol at the head of the House of Lords, and to say 
that they must either accept the whole straggling and ill- 
constructed measure as it stood, or be held up to public 
odium for rejecting it. But when the Bill was looked at 
as a whole, it was found to contain principles — novel prin- 



236 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 15, 

ciples as far as the great part of Scotland was concerned, 
bad principles, as the experience of Ireland showed — which 
the House of Lords, and not only the Conservatives in the 
House of Lords, were not prepared to endorse. Was it 
Conservative criticism which killed the Bill ? It was 
riddled with arguments by a Liberal Peer and former 
Liberal Prime Minister — arguments to which the Govern- 
ment speakers were quite unable, and had the good sense not 
even to attempt, to reply. And that is the instance which 
is quoted to prove that the House of Lords is a Tory Caucus ! 
Now, before leaving this question of the House of Lords, 
let me just say one word about its general attitude. I 
have not long been a member of that assembly. I do not 
presume to take much part in its discussions. But I follow 
them, and I think I follow them with a fairly unprejudiced 
mind. On many questions I am perhaps not in accord 
with the views of the majority of the House. But what 
strikes me about the House of Lords is that it is a singu- 
larly independent assembly. It is not at the beck and call 
of any man. It is a body which does not care at all about 
party claptrap, but which does care a great deal about a 
good argument, from whatever quarter it may proceed. 
Moreover, I am confident that the great body of its members 
are quite alive to the fact that they cannot afford to cast 
their votes merely according to their individual opinions 
and personal prejudices — that they are trustees for the 
nation, and that, while it is their duty to prevent the nation 
being hustled into revolution, as but for them it would 
have been hustled into Home Rule in 1893, they have no 
right to resist changes upon which the nation has clearly, 
and after full deliberation, set its mind. And when the 
Prime Minister says that it is intolerable arrogance on the 
part of the House of Lords to pretend to know better what 
the nation wishes than the House of Commons, I can only 
reply that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In 
1893 the House of Commons said that the nation wished 
Home Rule. The House of Lords had the intolerable 
arrogance to take a different view. Well, within less than 



1907] UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE 237 

two years, the question was submitted to the nation ; and 
who proved to be right ? 

I regret to have had to dwell at such length upon this 
particular topic. But it seems to me that we have no 
choice in the matter. If the Government succeed in their 
attempt to divert the attention of the nation from matters 
of the greatest interest at home and abroad in order to 
involve us all in a constitutional struggle on a false issue, 
we must be prepared to meet them. But I do not wish 
to waste the rare opportunity afforded to me to-night of 
addressing this great and representative Scottish audience, 
by talking exclusively about this regrettable manoeuvre. 
There is something I am anxious to say to you about the 
future of the Unionist party. I do not claim to lay down 
a policy for that or for any party. I am not, by tempera- 
ment or antecedents, a good party man. But I want to 
be allowed, as a private citizen, to point out what are the 
great services which I think the Unionist party can render 
to the nation at the present very critical juncture in its 
history. The Unionist party has a splendid record in the 
past. For twenty years it has saved the United Kingdom 
from disruption. It has preserved South Africa for the 
Empire ; and, greatly as I feel and know that the results 
of the efforts and sacrifices of the nation have been marred 
and impaired by the disastrous policy of the last two years. 
South Africa is still one country under the British flag. 
And all the time, in spite of foreign war and domestic sedi- 
tion, the Unionist party has pursued a steady policy of 
practical social reform, and the administrative and legis- 
lative record of the last twenty years will compare favour- 
ably with that of any period of our history. 

But no party can afford to rely upon its past achieve- 
ments. How is the Unionist party going to confront the 
great problems of the present day ? The greatest of these 
problems, as I shaU never cease to preach to my country- 
men, is the maintenance of the great heritage which we 
owe to the courage, the enterprise, and the self-sacrifice 
of our forefathers, who built up one of the greatest Empires 



238 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 15, 

in history by, on the whole, the most honourable means. 
The epoch of expansion is pretty nearly past, but there 
remains before us a great work of development and con- 
solidation. And that is a work which should appeal 
especially to Scotsmen. The Scottish people have borne 
a great part, great out of proportion to their numbers, in 
building up our common British heritage. They are 
taking a foremost part in it to-day. All over the world, 
as settlers in Canada, in Austraha, or in South Africa, as 
administrators in India and elsewhere, they are among 
the sturdiest pillars on which the great Imperial fabric 
rests. I am not talking in the air. I am speaking from 
my personal experience, and only saying in public here 
to-night what I have said in private a hundred times, that 
as an agent of my country in distant lands I have had 
endless occasion to appreciate the support given to the 
British cause by the ability, the courage, the shrewd sense 
and the broad Imperial instinct of many Scotsmen. And 
therefore I look with confidence to a Scottish audience to 
support my appeal for continuous national effort in making 
the most of the British Empire. I say this is not a matter 
with regard to which we can afford to rest on our laurels. 
We must either go forward or we shall go back. And 
especially ought we to go forward in developing co-opera- 
tion, on a basis of equality and partnership, with the great 
self-governing communities of our race in the distant 
portions of the world, else they will drift away from us. 
Do not let us think for a moment that we can afford such 
another fiasco as the late Colonial Conference. Do not 
let us imagine for a moment that we can go to sleep over 
the questions then raised, and not one of them settled, for 
four years, only to find ourselves unprepared when the 
next Conference meets. A cordial social welcome, many 
toasts, many dinners, are all very weU in their way, but 
they are not enough. What is wanted is a real under- 
standing of what our fellow-countrymen across the seas 
are driving at, and a real attempt to meet them in their 
efforts to keep us a united family. All that our present 



1907] UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE 239 

rulers seem able to do is to misunderstand, and therefore 
unconsciously to misrepresent — I do not question their 
good intentions, but I think they are struck with mental 
blindness in this matter — to misrepresent the attitude of 
the colonists, and greatly to exaggerate the difficulties of 
meeting them half-way. The speeches of Ministers on a 
question like that of Colonial Preference leave upon me 
the most deplorable impression. One would have thought 
that, if they could not get over the objections which they 
feel to meeting the advances of our kinsmen, they would 
at least show some sort of regret at their failure. But not 
a bit of it. Their one idea all along has been to magnify 
the difficulties in the way in order to make party capital 
out of the business. They saw their way to a good cry 
about ' taxing the food of the people,' the big and the little 
loaf, and so forth, and they went racing after it, regardless 
of everything but its electioneering value. From first to 
last there has been the same desire to make the worst of 
things, sometimes by very disingenuous means. First of 
all it was said that there was ' no colonial offer.' But when 
the representatives of the Colonies came here, and all in 
the plainest terms offered us preference for preference, this 
device evidently had to be abandoned. So then it was 
asserted that, in order to give preference to the Colonies, 
we must tax raw materials. But this move again was 
promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated declara- 
tion of the colonial representatives that they did not 
expect us to tax raw materials. And so nothing was left 
to Ministers, determined as they were to wriggle out of 
any agreement with the Colonies at all costs, except to 
fall back on the old, weary parrot-cry — ' Will you tax 
corn ? ' ' Will you tax butter ? ' and so on through the 
whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation 
of any one of which was thought to be valuable as an 
electioneering bogey. 

For my own part, I am not the least bit frightened by 
any of these questions. If I am asked whether I would 
tax this or tax that, it may be proof of great depravity on 



240 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 15, 

my part, but I say without hesitation that, for a sufficient 
object, I should not have the least objection to putting two 
shillings a quarter on wheat or twopence a pound on 
butter. But I must add that the whole argument nauseates 
me. What sort of opinion must these gentlemen have of 
their fellow-countrymen, if they think that the question 
of a farthing on the quartern loaf or half a farthing on the 
pat of butter is going to outweigh in their minds every 
national consideration ? And these are the men who 
accused Mr. Chamberlain of wishing to unite the Empire 
by sordid bonds ! It is indeed extraordinary and to my 
mind almost heartrending to see how this question of 
Tariff Reform continues to be discussed on the lowest 
grounds, and how its higher and wider aspects seem to 
be so constantly neglected. Yet we have no excuse for 
ignoring them. The colonial advocates of preference, 
and especially Mr. Deakin, with whose point of view I 
thoroughly agree, have repeatedly explained the great 
pohtical, national, and I might almost say moral aspects of 
that policy. There is a great deal more in it than a read- 
justment of duties — twopence off this and a penny on that. 
I do not say that such details are not important. When 
the time comes I am prepared to show — and I am an old 
hand at these things — that the objections which loom so 
large in many eyes can really be very easily circumvented. 
But I would not attempt to bother my fellow-countrymen 
with complicated changes in their fiscal arrangements, 
or even with the discussion of them, if it were not for the 
bigness of the principle that is involved. 

I wish to look at it from two points of view. The prin- 
ciple which lies at the root of Tariff Reform, in its Imperial 
aspect, is the national principle. The people of these great 
dominions beyond the seas are no strangers to us. They 
are our own kith and kin. We do not wish to deal with 
them, even in merely material matters, on the same basis 
as with strangers. That is the great difference between 
us Tariff Reformers and the Cobdenites. The Cobdenite 
only looks at the commercial side. He is a cosmopolitan. 



1907] UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE 241 

He does not care from whom he buys, or to whom he sells. 
He does not care about the ulterior effects of his trading, 
whether it promotes British industry or ruins it ; whether 
it assists the growth of the kindred states, or only enriches 
foreign countries. To us Tariff Reformers these matters 
are of moment, and of the most tremendous moment. 
We do not undervalue our great foreign trade, and I for 
one am convinced that there is nothing in the principles 
of Tariff Reform which wiU injure that trade. Quite the 
reverse. But we do hold that our first concern is with the 
industry and productive capacities of our own country, 
and our next with those of the great kindred countries 
across the seas. We hold that a wise fiscal policy would 
help to direct commerce into channels which would not 
only assist the British worker, but also assist colonial 
development, and make for the greater and more rapid 
growth of those countries, which not only contain our 
best customers, but our feUow-citizens. 

That, I say, is one aspect of the matter. But then there 
is the other side — the question of social reform in this 
country. Now here again we differ from the Cobdenite. 
The Cobdenite is an individualist. He believes that 
private enterprise, working under a system of unfettered 
competition, with cheapness as its supreme object, is the 
surest road to universal well-being. The Tariff Reformer 
also believes in private enterprise, but he does not believe 
that the mere blind struggle for individual gain is going 
to produce the most beneficent results. He does not 
believe in cheapness if it is the result of sweating or of 
underpaid labour. He keeps before him as the main 
object of all domestic policy the gradual, steady elevation 
of the standard of life throughout the community ; and 
he believes that the action of the State deliberately directed 
to the encouragement of British industry, not merely by 
tariffs, is part and parcel of any sound national poHcy 
and of true Imperialism. And please observe that in a 
number of cases the Radical party itself has abandoned 
Cobdenism. Pure individualism went to the wall in the 

Q 



242 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 19, 

Factory Acts, and it is going to the wall every day in our 
domestic legislation. It is solely with regard to this matter 
of imports that the Radical party still cling to the Cobdenite 
doctrine, and the consequence is that their policy has 
become a mass of inconsistencies. It is devoid of any 
logical foundation whatever. 

I know that there are many people, sound Unionists 
at heart, who still have a difficulty about accepting the 
doctrines of the Tariff Reformers. My belief is that, if 
they could only look at the matter from the broad national 
and Imperial point of view, they would come to alter their 
convictions. I am not advocating Tariff Reform as in 
itself the greatest of human objects. But it seems to me 
the key of the position. It seems to me that, without it, 
we can neither take the first steps towards drawing closer 
the bonds between the Mother Country and the great self- 
governing states of the Empire ; nor maintain the pros- 
perity of the British worker in face of unfair foreign com- 
petition ; nor obtain that large and elastic revenue which 
is absolutely essential if we are going to pursue a policy 
of social reform and mean real business. I cannot but 
hope that many of those who still shy at Tariff Reform, 
when they come to look at it from this point of view — to 
see it as I see it, not as an isolated thing, but as an essential 
and necessary part of a comprehensive national policy — 
will rally to our cause. I have travelled along that road 
myself. I have been a Cobdenite myself — I am not ashamed 
of it. But I have come to see that the doctrine of free 
imports — the religion of free imports, I ought to say — as 
it is practised in this country to-day, is inconsistent with 
social reform, inconsistent with fair play to British industry, 
and inconsistent with the development and consolidation 
of the Empire. And therefore I rejoice that, in the really 
great speech which he delivered last night, the leader of 
the Unionist party has once more unhesitatingly affirmed 
his adhesion to the principles which I have been trying, in 
my feebler way, to advocate here this evening. My own 
conviction is that, when these principles are understood 



1907] UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM 243 

in aU their bearings, they will command the approval of 
the mass of the people. And even in Scotland, where I 
dare say it is a very uphill fight, I look forward with con- 
fidence to their ultimate victory. Do not let us be dis- 
couraged if the fight is long and the progress slow. The 
great permanent influences are on our side. On the one 
hand there is the growth of the Empire, with all the oppor- 
tunities which it affords ; on the other, there is the increas- 
ing determination of foreign nations to keep their business 
to themselves. These potent facts, which have already 
converted so many leading minds, will in due time make 
themselves felt in ever-widening circles. And they will 
not fail to produce their effect upon the shrewd practical 
sense of the Scottish people, especially when combined 
with an appeal to the patriotic instincts of a race which 
has done so much to make the Empire what it is, and which 
has such a supreme interest in its maintenance and con- 
solidation. 

RUGBY.— November 19, 1907 

Unionists and Social Reform 
[At a meeting of a local Unionist Association.] 

There has been such a deluge of talk during the last three 
weeks that I doubt whether it is possible for me, or any 
man, to make a further contribution to the discussion 
which will have any freshness or value. But inasmuch 
as you probably do not all read all the speeches, you may 
perhaps be willing to hear from me a condensed summary 
of what it all comes to — of course, from my point of view, 
which no doubt is not quite the same as that of the Prime 
Minister or Mr. Asquith. Now, from my point of view, 
there has been a considerable clearing of the air, and we 
ought all to be in a position to take a more practical and 
less exaggerated view of the situation. Speaking as a 
Tariff Reformer, I think that those people with whom 
Tariff Reformers agree on almost all other political ques- 
tions, but who are strongly and conscientiously opposed 
to anything like what they call tampering with our fiscal 



244 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 19, 

system, must by now understand a little better than they 
did before what Tariff Reformers really aim at, and must 
begin to see that there is nothing so very monstrous or revolu- 
tionary about our proposals. I hope they may also begin 
to see why it is that Tariff Reformers are so persistent and 
so insistent upon their own particular view. There is some- 
thing very attractive in the argument which says that, 
since Tariff Reform is a stumbling-block to many good 
Unionists, it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in 
defence of an effective Second Chamber, and in defence 
of all our institutions against revolutionary attacks directed 
upon the existing order of society. In so far as this is an 
argument for tolerance and against excommunicating 
people because they do not agree with me about Tariff 
Reform, I am entirely in accord with it. I am only a 
convert to Tariff Reform myself, although I am not a very 
recent convert, for at the beginning of 1903, at Bloem- 
fontein, I was instrumental in inducing all the South African 
colonies to give a substantial preference to goods of British 
origin. I was instrumental in doing that some months 
before the great Tariff Reform campaign was inaugurated in 
this country by its leading champion, Mr. Chamberlain. But 
while I am all for personal tolerance, I am opposed to any 
compromise on the question of principle. I am not opposed 
to it from any perverseness or any obstinacy. I am 
opposed to it, because I see clearly that dropping Tariff 
Reform will knock the bottom out of a policy which I 
believe is not only right in itself, but is the only effective 
defence of the Union and of many other things which are 
very dear to us — I mean a policy of constructive Imperialism, 
and of steady, consistent, unhasting, and unresting Social 
Reform. 

I have never advocated Tariff Reform as a nostrum or 
as a panacea. I have never pretended that it is by itself 
alone sufficient to cure all the evils inherent in our social 
system, or alone sufficient as a bond of Empire. What 
I contend is that without it, without recovering our fiscal 
freedom, without recovering the power to deal with Customs 



1907] UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM 245 

duties in accordance with the conditions of the present 
time and not the conditions of fifty years ago, we cannot 
carry out any of those measures which it is most necessary 
that we should carry out. Without it we are unable to 
defend ourselves against illegitimate foreign competition ; 
we are unable to enter into those trade arrangements with 
the great self-governing states of the British Crown across 
the seas, which are calculated to bestow the most far- 
reaching benefits upon them and upon us ; and we are 
unable to obtain the revenue which is required for a policy 
of progressive Social Reform. I hope that people other- 
wise in agreement with us, who have hitherto not seen 
their way to get over their objections to Tariff Reform, 
wiU, nevertheless, find themselves able to accept that 
principle, when they regard it, not as an isolated thing, 
but as an essential part of a great national and Imperial 
policy. 

Of course they will have to see it as it is, and not as it 
is represented by its opponents. The opponents of Tariff 
Reform have a very easy method of arguing with its sup- 
porters. They say that any departure whatsoever from 
our present fiscal system necessarily involves taxing raw 
materials, and must necessarily result in high and pro- 
hibitive duties which will upset our foreign trade, and will 
be ruinous and disorganising to the whole business of the 
country. But Tariff Reformers are not going to frame 
their duties in order to suit the argumentative convenience 
of Mr. Asquith. They are going to be guided by whoUy 
different considerations from that. It is curious that 
everybody opposed to Tariff Reform says that Tariff 
Reformers intend to tax raw material, while Tariff 
Reformers themselves have steadily said they do not. I 
ask you in that respect to take the description of a policy 
of Tariff Reform from those who advocate it, and not from 
those who oppose it. And as for the argument about 
high prohibitive duties, I wish people would read the 
reports or summaries of the reports of the Tariff Commis- 
sion. They contain not only the most valuable collection 



246 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 19, 

that exists anywhere of the present facts about almost 
every branch of British industry, but they are also an 
authoritative source from which to draw inferences as to 
the intentions of Tariff Reformers. Now the Tariff Reform 
Commission have not attempted to frame a complete 
tariff, a scale of duties for all articles imported into this 
country, and wisely ; because, if they had tried to do that, 
people would have said that they were arrogating to them- 
selves the duties of Parliament. What they have done 
is to show by a few instances that a policy of Tariff Reform 
is not a thing in the air, not a mere thing of phrases and 
catchwords, but is a practical, business-like working policy. 
They have drawn up what may be called experimental 
scales of duties, which are merely suggestions for con- 
sideration, with respect to a number of articles under the 
principal heads of British imports, such as, for instance, 
agricultural imports and imports of iron and steel. These 
experimental duties vary on the average from something 
like 5 per cent, to 10 per cent, on the value of the articles. 
In no one case in my recollection do they exceed 10 per 
cent. 

But then the opponents of Tariff Reform say : ' Yes. 
That is all very well. But though you may begin with 
moderate duties, you are bound to proceed to higher ones. 
It is in the nature of things that you should go on increas- 
ing and increasing, and in the end we shall all be ruined.' 
I must say that seems to me great nonsense. It reminds me 
of nothing so much as the fearful warnings which I have read 
in the least judicious sort of temperance literature, and some- 
times heard from temperance orators of the more extreme 
type — the sort of warning, I mean, that, if you once begin 
touching anything stronger than water, you are bound 
to go on till you end by beating your wife and die in a 
workhouse. But you and I know perfectly well that it is 
possible to have an occasional glass of beer or glass of 
wine, or even, low be it spoken, a little whisky, without 
beating or wanting to beat anybody, and without coming 
to such a terrible end. The argument against the use of 



1907] UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM 247 

anything from its abuse has always struck me as one of 
the feeblest of arguments. And just see how particularly 
absurd it is in the present case. The effect of duties on 
foreign imports, even such moderate and carefully devised 
duties as those to which I have referred, would, we are 
told, be ruinous to British trade. It would place intoler- 
able burdens upon the people. Yet for all that the people 
would, it appears, insist on increasing these burdens. 
Surely it is as clear as a pikestaff that, if the duties which 
Tariff Reformers advocate were to produce the evils which 
Free Importers allege that they would produce, these 
duties, so far from being inevitably maintained and in- 
creased, would not survive one General Election after 
their imposition. 

It is not only with regard to Tariff Reform that I think 
the air is clearer. The Unionist party has to my mind 
escaped another danger which was quite as great as that 
of allowing the tariff question to be pushed on one side, 
and that was the danger of being frightened by the scare, 
which the noisy spreading of certain subversive doctrines 
has lately caused, into a purely negative and defensive 
attitude ; of ceasing to be, as it has been, a popular and 
progressive party, and becoming merely the embodiment 
of upper and middle class prejudices and alarms. I do 
not say that there are not many projects in the air which 
are calculated to excite alarm, but they can only be suc- 
cessfully resisted on frankly democratic and popular lines. 
My own feeling is — I may be quite wrong, but I state my 
opinion for what it is worth — that there is far less danger 
of the democracy going wrong about domestic questions 
than there is of their going wrong about foreign and Imperial 
questions, and for this simple reason, that with regard to 
domestic questions they have their own sense and experi- 
ence to guide them. 

If a mistake is made in domestic policy, its consequences 
are rapidly felt, and no amount of fine talking will induce 
people to persist in courses which are affecting them in- 
juriously in their daily lives. You have thus a constant 



248 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 19, 

and effective check upon those who are disposed to try 
dangerous experiments, or to go too fast even on lines 
which may be in themselves laudable, as the experience 
of recent municipal elections, among other things, clearly 
shows. But with regard to Imperial questions, to our 
great and vital interests in distant parts of the earth, 
neither is there necessarily the same amount of personal 
knowledge on the part of the electorate, nor do the con- 
sequences of a mistaken policy recoil so directly and so 
unmistakably upon them. These subjects, therefore, are 
the happy hunting-ground of the visionary and the phrase- 
maker. I have seen the people of this country talked into 
a policy with regard to South Africa at once so injurious 
to their own interests, and so base towards those who had 
thrown in their lot with us and trusted us, that, if the 
British nation had only known what that policy really 
meant, they would have spat it out of their mouths. And 
I tremble every day lest, on the vital question of Defence, 
the pressure of well-meaning but ignorant idealists, or 
the meaner influence of vote-catching demagogues, should 
lead this Government or, indeed, any Government, to 
curtail the provision, already none too ample, for the 
safety of the Empire, in order to pose as the friends of 
peace or as special adepts in economy. I know these 
savings of a million or two a year over say five or ten years, 
which cost you fifty or one hundred millions, wasted 
through unreadiness when the crisis comes, to say nothing 
of the waste of gallant lives even more precious. This 
is the kind of question about which the democracy is liable 
to be misled, being without the corrective of direct personal 
contact with the facts to keep them straight. And it is un- 
popular and uphill work to go on reminding people of 
the vastness of the duty and the responsibility which the 
control of so great a portion of the earth's surface, with a 
dependent population of three or four hundred millions, 
necessarily involves ; to go on reminding them, too, how 
their own prosperity and even existence in these islands 
are linked by a hundred subtle but not always obvious 



1907] UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM 249 

or superficially apparent threads with the maintenance 
of those great external possessions. 

I say these are difficulties which any party or any man 
who is prepared to do his duty by the electorate of this 
country, not merely to ingratiate himself with them for 
the moment, but to win their confidence by deserving it, by 
teUing them the truth, by serving their permanent interests 
and not their passing moods, is bound to face. For my 
own part, I have always been perfectly frank on these 
questions. I have maintained on many platforms, I am pre- 
pared to maintain here to-night and shall always maintain, 
although this is a subject on which it may be long before 
my views are included in any party programme — I say I 
shall always maintain, that real security is not possible 
without citizen service, and that the training of every 
able-bodied man to be capable of taking part, if need be, 
in the defence of his country, is not only good for the country 
but good for the man — and would materially assist in the 
solution of many other problems, social and economic. 
But being, as I am, thus uncompromising, and quite pre- 
pared to find myself unpopular, on these vital questions of 
national security, and of our Imperial duties and respon- 
sibilities, I can perhaps afford to say, without being sus- 
pected of fawning or of wishing to play the demagogue 
myself, that in the matter of domestic reform I am not 
easy to frighten, and that I have a very great trust in the 
essential fair-mindedness and good sense of the great body 
of my fellow-countrymen with regard to questions which 
come within their own direct cognisance. And therefore 
it was most reassuring to me at any rate — and I hope it 
was to you — to observe, that that large section of the 
Unionist party which met at Birmingham last week, not 
so much by any resolutions or formal programme — for 
there was nothing very novel in these-^as by the whole 
tone and temper of its proceedings, affirmed in the most 
emphatic manner the essentially progressive and demo- 
cratic character of Unionism. The greatest danger I hold 
to the Unionist party and to the nation is, that the ideals 



250 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 19. 

of national strength and Imperial consolidation on the 
one hand, and of democratic progress and domestic reform 
on the other, should be dissevered, and that people should 
come to regard as antagonistic objects which are essentially 
related and complementary to one another. The up- 
holders of the Union, the upholders of the Empire, the 
upholders of the fundamental institutions of the State, 
must not only be, but must be seen and known to be, 
the strenuous and constant assailants of those two great 
related curses of our social system — irregular employment 
and unhealthy conditions of life — and of all the various 
causes which lead to them. 

I cannot stay here to enumerate those causes, but I will 
mention a few of them. There is the defective training of 
children, defective physical training to begin with, and 
then the failure to equip them with any particular and 
definite form of skill. There is the irregular way in which 
new centres of population are allowed to spring up, so that 
we go on creating fresh slums as fast as we pull down the 
old rookeries. There is the depopulation of the country- 
side, and the influx of foreign paupers into our already 
overcrowded towns. There is the undermining of old- 
established and valuable British industries by unfair foreign 
competition. That is not an exhaustive list, but it is 
sufficient to illustrate my meaning. Well, wherever these 
and similar evils are eating away the health and indepen- 
dence of our working people, there the foundations of the 
Empire are being undermined, for it is the race that makes 
the Empire. Loud is the call to every true Unionist, to 
every true Imperialist, to come to the rescue. 

And now, at the risk of wearying you, there is one other 
subject to which I would like specially to refer, lest I should 
be accused of deliberately giving it the go-by, and that is 
the question of old age pensions. It is not a reform alto- 
gether of the same nature as those on which I have been 
dwelling, nor is it perhaps the kind of reform about which 
I feel the greatest enthusiasm, because I would rather 
attack the causes, which lead to that irregularity of 



1907] UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM 251 

employment and that under-payment which prevents 
people from providing for their own old age themselves, 
than merely remedy the evils arising from it. But I accept 
the fact that under present conditions, which it may be 
that a progressive policy in time will alter, a sufficient 
case for State aid in the matter of old age pensions has 
been made out, and I believe that no party is going to 
oppose the introduction of old age pensions. But, on the 
other hand, I foresee great difficulties and great disputes 
over the question of the manner in which the money is to 
be provided. I know how our Radical friends will wish 
to provide the money. They will want to get it, in the 
first instance, by starving the Army and the Navy. To 
that way of providing it I hope the Unionist party, how- 
ever unpopular such a course may be, and however liable to 
misrepresentation it may be, will oppose an iron resistance, 
because this is an utterly rotten and bad way of financing 
old age pensions, or anything else. But that method alone, 
however far it is carried, will not provide money enough, 
and there will be an attempt to raise the rest by taxes levied 
exclusively on the rich. I am against that also, because 
it is thoroughly wrong in principle. I am not against 
making the rich pay, to the full extent of their capacity, 
for great national purposes, even for national purposes 
in which they have no direct interest. But I am not pre- 
pared to see them made to pay exclusively. Let all pay 
according to their means. It is a thoroughly vicious idea 
that money should be taken out of the pocket of one man, 
however rich, in order to be put into the pocket of another, 
however poor. That is a bad, anti-national principle, 
and I hope the Unionist party will take a firm stand 
against it. And this is an additional reason why we should 
raise whatever money may be necessary by duties upon 
foreign imports, because in that way all will contribute. 
No doubt the rich will contribute the bulk of the money 
through the duties on imported luxuries, but there will be 
some contribution, as there ought to be some contribution, 
from every class of the people. 



252 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 5. 

And now, in conclusion, one word about purely practical 
considerations. We Unionists, if you will allow me to 
call myself a Unionist — at any rate I have explained quite 
frankly what I mean by the term — are not a class party, 
but a national party. That being so, it is surely of the 
utmost importance that men of all classes should parti- 
cipate in every branch and every grade of the work of the 
Unionist party. Why should we not have Unionist Labour 
members as well as Radical Labour members ? I think 
that the working classes of this country are misrepresented 
in the eyes of the public of this country and of the world, 
as long as they appear to have no leaders in Parliament 
except the men who concoct and pass those machine- 
made resolutions, with which we are so familiar in the 
reports of Trade Union Congresses. I am not speaking 
now about their resolutions on trade questions, which they 
thoroughly understand, but about resolutions on such 
subjects as foreign politics, the Army and Navy, and 
Colonial and Imperial questions, resolutions which are 
always upon the same monotonous lines. I do not believe 
that the working classes are the unpatriotic, anti-national, 
down-with-the-army, up-with-the-foreigner, take-it-lying- 
down class of Little Englanders, that they are constantly 
represented to be. I do not believe it for a moment. I 
have heard Imperial questions discussed by working men 
in excellent speeches, not only eloquent speeches, but 
speeches showing a broad grasp and a truly Imperial spirit, 
and I should like speeches of that kind to be heard in the 
House of Commons, as an antidote to the sort of preaching 
which we get from the present Labour members. And 
what I say about the higher posts in the Unionist army 
applies equally to all other ranks. No Unionist member 
or Unionist candidate is really well served unless he has 
a number of men of the working class on what I may call 
his political staff. And I say this not merely for electioneer- 
ing reasons. This is just one of the cases in which considera- 
tions of party interest coincide — I wish they always or 
often did — with considerations of a higher character. 



1907] SWEATED INDUSTRIES 253 

There is nothing more calculated to remove class prejudice 
and antagonism than the co-operation of men of different 
classes on the same body for the same public end. And 
there is this about the aims of Unionism, that they are best 
calculated to teach the value of such co-operation ; to 
bring home to men of all classes their essential inter- 
dependence on one another, as well as to bring home to 
each individual the pettiness and meanness of personal 
vanity and ambition in the presence of anything so great, 
so stately, as the common heritage and traditions of the 
British race. 



OXFORD.— December 5, 1907 

Sweated Industries 

[In the course of opening the Exhibition held under the auspices of 
the Industrial Law Committee.] 

This exhibition is one of a series which are being held in 
different parts of the country, with the object of directing 
attention, or rather of keeping it directed, to the condi- 
tions under which a number of articles, many of them 
articles of primary necessity, are at present being pro- 
duced, and with the object also of improving the lot of the 
people engaged in the production of those articles. Now 
this matter is one of great national importance, because 
the sweated workers are numbered by hundreds of 
thousands, and because their poverty and the resulting 
evils affect many beside themselves, and exercise a depress- 
ing influence on large classes of the community. What 
do we mean by sweating ? I will give you a definition 
laid down by a Parliamentary Committee, which made 
a most exhaustive inquiry into the subject : ' Unduly low 
rates of wages, excessive hours of work, and insanitary 
condition of the work-places.' You may say that this is 
a state of things against which our instincts of humanity 
and charity revolt. And this is perfectly true, but I do 
not propose to approach the question from that point of 



254 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 5, 

view to-day. I want to approach it from the economic 
and pohtical standpoint. But when I say political I do 
not mean it in any party sense. This is not a party ques- 
tion ; may it never become one ! The organisers of this 
exhibition have done what lay in their power to prevent 
the blighting and corrosive influence of party from being 
extended to it. The fact that the position which I occupy 
at this moment will be occupied to-morrow by the wife 
of a distinguished member of the present Government 
(Mrs. Herbert Gladstone), and on Saturday by a leading 
member of the Labour party (Mr. G. N. Barnes, M.P.), 
shows that this is a cause in which people of all parties 
can co-operate. The more we deal with sweating on these 
lines, the more we deal with it on its merits or demerits 
without ulterior motive, the more likely we shall be to 
make a beginning in the removal of those evils against 
which our crusade is directed. 

My view is, that the sweating system impoverishes and 
weakens the whole community, because it saps the stamina 
and diminishes the productive power of thousands of 
workers, and these in their turn drag others down with 
them. ' Unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of 
labour, insanitary condition of work-places ' — what does 
all that mean ? It means an industry essentially rotten 
and unsound. To say that the labourer is worthy of his 
hire is not only the expression of a natural instinct of 
justice, but it embodies an economic truth. One does not 
need to be a Socialist, not, at least, a Socialist in the sense 
in which the word is ordinarily used, as designating a man 
who desires that all instruments of production should be- 
come common property — one does not need to be a Socialist 
in that sense in order to realise that an industry, which 
does not provide those engaged in it with sufficient to keep 
them in health, is essentially unsound. Used-up capital 
must be replaced, and of all forms of capital the most 
fundamental and indispensable is the human energy neces- 
sarily consumed in the work of production. A sweated 
industry does not provide for the replacing of that kind 



1907] SWEATED INDUSTRIES 255 

of capital. It squanders its human material. It consumes 
more energy in the work it exacts than the remuneration 
it gives is capable of replacing. The workers in sweated 
industries are not able to live on their wages. As it is, 
they live miserably, grow old too soon, and bring up sickly 
children. But they would not live at all, were it not for 
the fact that their inadequate wages are supplemented, 
directly, in many cases, by out-relief, and indirectly by 
numerous forms of charity. In one way or another the 
community has to make good the inefficiency that sweat- 
ing produces. In one way or another the community 
ultimately pays, and it is my firm belief that it pays far 
more in the long run under the present system, than if aU 
workers were self-supporting. If a true account could 
be kept, it would be found that anything which the com- 
munity gains by the cheapness of articles produced under 
the sweating system is more than outweighed by the in- 
direct loss involved in the inevitable subsidising of a 
sweated industry. That would be found to be the result, 
even if no account were taken of the greatest loss of all, 
the loss arising from the inefficiency of the sweated workers 
and of their children, for sweating is calculated to per- 
petuate inefficiency and degeneration. 

The question is : Can anything be done ? Of the three 
related evils — undulj^^ low rates of wages, excessive hours 
of labour, and insanitary condition of work-places — it is 
evident that the first applies equally to sweated workers 
in factories and at home, but the two others are to some 
extent guarded against, in factories, by existing legisla- 
tion. This is the reason why some people would like to 
see all work done for wages transferred to factories. 
Broadly speaking, I sympathise with that view. But if 
it were universally carried out at the present moment, 
it would inffict an enormous amount of suffering and 
injustice on those who add to their incomes by home work. 
Hence the problem is twofold. First, can we extend to 
workers in their own homes that degree of protection in 
respect of hours and sanitary conditions which the law 



256 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 5, 

already gives to workers in factories ? And secondly, can 
we do anything to obtain for sweated workers, whether in 
homes or factories, rates of remuneration less palpably 
inadequate ? Now it certainly seems impossible to limit 
the hours of workers, especially adult workers, in their 
own homes. More can be done to ensure sanitary condi- 
tions of work. Much has been done already, so far as the 
structural condition of dwellings is concerned. But I am 
afraid that the measures necessary to introduce what may 
be called the factory standard of sanitariness into every 
room, where work is being done for wages, would involve 
an amount of inspection and interference with the domestic 
lives of hundreds of thousands of people, which might 
create such unpopularity as to defeat its own object. I do 
not say that nothing more should be attempted in that 
direction, quite the reverse ; but I say that nothing which 
can be attempted in that direction really goes to the root 
of the evil, which is the insufficiency of the wage. How 
can you possibly make it healthy for a woman, living in a 
single room, perhaps with children, but even without, to 
work twelve or fourteen hours a day for seven or eight 
shillings a week, and at the same time to do her own cook- 
ing, washing, and so on ? How much food is she likely 
to have ? How much time will be hers to keep the place 
clean and tidy ? An increase of wages would not make 
sanitary regulations unnecessary, but it would make their 
observance more possible. 

An increase of wages then is the primary condition of 
any real improvement in the lives of the sweated workers. 
So the point is this. Can we do anything by law to screw 
up the remuneration of the worst-paid workers to the 
minimum necessary for tolerable human existence ? I 
know that many people think it impossible, but my answer 
is, that the fixing of a limit below which wages shall not 
fall is already not the exception but the rule in this country. 
That may seem a rather startling statement, but I believe 
I can prove it. Take the case of the State, the greatest 
of all employers. The State does not allow the rates of 



1907] SWEATED INDUSTRIES 257 

pay, even of its humblest employes, to be decided by the 
scramble for employment. The State cannot afford, nor 
can any great municipality afford, to pay wages on which 
it is obviously impossible to live. There would be an 
immediate outcry. Here then you have a case of vast 
extent, in which a downward limit of wages is fixed by 
public opinion. Take, again, any of the great staple 
industries of the country, the cotton industry, the iron and 
steel industry, and many others. In the case of these 
industries, rates of remuneration are fixed in innumerable 
instances by agreement between the whole body of employers 
in a particular trade and district on the one hand, and the 
whole body of employes on the other. The result is to 
exclude unregulated competition and to secure the same 
wages for the same work. No doubt there is an element — 
and this is a point of great importance — which enters into 
the determination of wages in these organised trades, but 
which does not enter in the same degree into the deter- 
mination of the salaries paid by the State. That element 
is the consideration of what the employers can afford to 
pay. This question is constantly being threshed out 
between them and the workpeople, with resulting agree- 
ments. The number of such agreements is very large, 
and the provisions contained in them often regulate the 
rate of remuneration for various classes of workers with 
the greatest minuteness. But the great object, and the 
principal effect of all these agreements, is this : it is to 
ensure uniformity of remuneration, the same wage for the 
same work, and to protect the most necessitous and most 
helpless workers from being forced to take less than the 
employers can afford to pay. Broadly speaking, the rate 
of pay, in these highly organised industries, is determined 
by the value of the work and not by the need of the worker. 
That makes an enormous difference. But in sweated 
industries this is not the case. Sweated industries are 
the unorganised industries, those in which there is no 
possibility of organisation among the workers. Here the 
individual worker, without resources and without backing. 



258 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 5, 

is left, in the struggle of unregulated competition, to take 
whatever he can get, regardless of what others may be 
getting for the same work and of the value of the work 
itself. Hence the extraordinary inequality of payment 
for the same kind of work and the generally low average 
of payment which are the distinguishing features of all 
sweated industries. 

Now, if you have followed this rather dry argument, I 
shall probably have your concurrence when I say that 
the proposal that the State should intervene to secure, 
not an all-round minimum wage, but the same wages for 
the same work, and nothing less than the standard rate 
of his particular work for every worker, is not a proposi- 
tion that the State should do something new, or excep- 
tional, or impracticable. It is a proposal that the State 
should do for the weakest and most helpless trades what 
the strongly-organised trades already do for themselves. 
I cannot see that there is anything unreasonable, much 
less revolutionary or subversive, in that suggestion. 

This proposal has taken practical form in a Bill pre- 
sented to the House of Commons last session. Whether 
the measure reached its second reading or not I do not 
know. It was a Bill for the establishment of Wages Boards 
in certain industries employing great numbers of work- 
people, such as tailoring, shirtmaking, and so on. The 
industries selected were those in which the employes, 
though numerous, are hopelessly disorganised and unable 
to make a bargain for themselves. And the Bill pro- 
vided that where any six persons, whether masters or 
employes, applied to the Home Secretary for the estab- 
lishment of a Wages Board, such a Board should be created 
in the particular industry and district concerned ; that 
it should consist of representatives of employers and 
employed in equal proportions, with an impartial chairman ; 
and that it should have the widest possible discretion to 
fix rates of remuneration. If Wages Boards were estab- 
lished, as the Bill proposed, they would simply do for 
sweated trades what is already constantly being done in 



1907] SWEATED INDUSTRIES 259 

organised trades, with no doubt one important difference 
— that the decisions of these Boards would be enforceable 
by law. Now that no doubt may seem to many of you 
a drastic proposition. But I would strongly recommend 
any one interested in the subject to study a recently- 
published Blue-book, one of the most interesting I have 
ever read, which contains the evidence given before the 
House of Commons Committee on Home Work. That 
Blue-book throws floods of light on the conditions which 
have led to the proposal of Wages Boards, on the way in 
which these Boards would be likely to work, and on the 
results of the operation of such Boards in the colony of 
Victoria, where they have existed for more than ten years, 
and now apply to more than forty industries. The perusal 
of that evidence would, I feel sure, remove some at least 
of the most obvious objections to this proposed remedy 
for sweating. 

Many people look askance, and justly look askance, at 
the interference of the State in anything so complicated 
and technical as a schedule of wages for any particular 
industry. But the point to bear in mind is this, that the 
wages, which under this proposal would be enforceable by 
law, would be wages that had been fixed for a particular 
industry in a particular district by persons intimately 
cognisant with all the circumstances, and, more than that, 
by persons having the deepest common interest to avoid 
anything which could injure the industry. The rates of 
remuneration so arrived at what would be based on the 
consideration of what the employers could afford to pay 
and yet retain such a reasonable rate of profit as would 
lead to their remaining in the industry. Such a regulation 
of wages would be as great a protection to the best employers 
against the cut-throat competition of unscrupulous rivals, 
as it would be to the workers against being compelled to 
sell their labour for less than its value. There is plenty of 
evidence that the regulation of wages would be welcomed 
by many employers. And as for the fear sometimes 
expressed that it would injure the weakest and least efficient 



260 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 6, 

workers, because, with increased wages, it would no longer 
be profitable to employ them, it must be borne in mind 
that people of that class are mainly home workers, and as 
remuneration for home work must be based on the piece, 
there would be no reason why they should not continue to 
be employed. No doubt they would not benefit as much 
as more efficient workers from increased rates, but pro 
tanto they would still benefit, and that is a consideration 
of great importance. But even if this were not the case, 
I would still contend that it was unjustifiable to allow 
thousands of people to remain in a preventable state of 
misery and degradation all their lives, merely in order to 
keep a tenth of their number out of the workhouse a few 
years longer. 

I have only one more word to say. I come back to the 
supreme interest of the community in the efficiency and 
welfare of all its members, to say nothing of the removal 
of the stain upon its honour and conscience which con- 
tinued tolerance of this evil involves. That to my mind 
is the greatest consideration of all. That is the true reason, 
as it would be the sufficient justification, for the interven- 
tion of the State. And, for my own part, I feel no doubt 
that, whether by the adoption of such a measure as we 
have been considering, or by some other enactment, steps 
will before long be taken for the removal of this national 
disgrace. 

MANSION HOUSE.— December 6, 1907 

Cape Town Cathedral Building Fund 

[At a meeting held at the Mansion House to make ' an appeal to Eng- 
land ' in aid of the building fund of the new cathedral at Cape Town, 
Lord Milner moved the following resolution : ' That the creation of a 
new cathedral at Cape Town is a work deserving the support of English 
churchmen,' and spoke as follows] : — 

It is not without some reluctance that I take part in any 
fresh appeal for money, even an inconsiderable amount of 
money, at the present time. Day by day the demands 



1907] CAPE TOWN CATHEDRAL 261 

upon the charitable and the pubhc -spirited increase. As 
we know very well now in the City of London, the means 
of responding to these demands do not increase in an equal 
degree. This is a season of the year, too, at which the 
claims on every one are extraordinarily heavy ; but every 
rule has its exception, and the case of Cape Town Cathedral 
really is a very hard case. Personally, I should feel under 
a special obligation at any time to do what I could to 
assist Cape Town. Cape Town was my home during the 
first half of my sojourn in South Africa, during four eventful 
years ; and it was a home which I loved, and which must 
always retain a special place in my affections. I lived 
among the people of Cape Town during a time of great 
trial, and the ties which are formed between those who 
are engaged in a common struggle, and who are in touch 
with a common affliction, are ties which last for a lifetime. 
But apart from these personal considerations, Cape Town 
holds a high, and in some senses almost a unique, place 
among the cities of the Empire. It is one of the very 
oldest colonial cities. It has been the principal seat of 
British Government in South Africa for a hundred years ; 
it has been the headquarters of European civilisation in 
that sub-continent for two hundred and fifty years. In 
relation to the rest of the King's dominions, Cape Town 
is a strategic point of first-rate importance. Whatever 
you may think of the value of the rest of South Africa — 
and I personally feel that it would be difficult to estimate 
it too highly — there can be no doubt that Cape Town and 
the Cape Peninsula are a vital link in the great Imperial 
chain. On the beautiful slopes of Table Mountain, in a 
climate which is one of the most favoured in the world, 
and amid scenery the m.ost magnificent, there has been 
established an outpost of British power and a home of 
European culture, of which it would be impossible to over- 
estimate the present value or the great future. Speaking 
specially to churchmen, may I remind you that Cape 
Town is the seat of the first, and what is still the chief, 
bishopric of South Africa, and that it has been the base 



262 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

from which all the great missionary work of our Church 
throughout that sub-continent — though fortunately now 
it has established other centres of improvement — originally 
proceeded ? The Cape Town Cathedral of to-day, in itself 
a mean or at any rate under present conditions an inadequate 
building, is not mean in its history and associations. It 
has a great tradition. It is linked with some of the noblest 
names and the highest aspirations in the world's achieve- 
ments and in the religious life of South Africa. To 
erect an edifice altogether worthy of Cape Town, or of 
the work of the Church in South Africa, is in present cir- 
cumstances unfortunately impossible. The Archbishop of 
Cape Town, who has made the erection of such an edifice 
the object of a lifelong endeavour, wisely recognised a year 
or two ago that the fulfilment of his whole ideal was not 
practicable. But he and others interested in the improve- 
ment of the cathedral saw their way, and with the aid of 
an architect, who for good taste and for sympathetic study 
of past models has no superior, they devised a scheme for 
partial reconstruction. The scheme was of a character to 
give us at once something that was beautiful so far as it 
went, and to leave room for further additions, which in 
the course of time and with money more abundant would 
make the whole beautiful, while the scheme was well 
within the means upon which they could reasonably count. 
But then came this great financial depression. We talk 
of depression in the City of London, but it is child's play, 
and nothing comparable with the deep financial gloom in 
which all South Africa, and perhaps especially Cape Town, 
are at present involved. That depression will pass, but 
meanwhile the work has been begun, and owing to this 
unforeseeable distress, the engagements of some of its 
supporters cannot be fulfilled ; and the danger, therefore, 
is that the whole thing will come to a standstill. Now 
that surely is a thing which English churchmen are not 
going to aUow to happen. The case is so strong, the need 
is so exceptional and so urgent that, speaking for myself, I 
feel that I shall have to put my hand into a pocket — ^never 



1907] MISSIONARIES OF EMPIRE 263 

well fiUed and now almost depleted — in order to fish out 
something ; and I therefore have the temerity to ask 
others to do the same, in order that Cape Town may have 
at least the beginning of a cathedral worthy of so important 
a place in the Empire, a place hallowed by the devotion, 
the efforts and achievements of so many members of the 
communion to which we belong. 

UNITED EMPIRE CLUB.— Decembek 18, 1907 

Missionaries of Empire 

[Lord Milner presided at the inaugural dinner of the United Empire 
Club, and made the following speech in reply to the toast of his health 
proposed by Mr. George Wyndham] : — 

I AM glad that Mr. Wyndham laid emphasis on the point 
that, when we toast the United Empire, we are toasting 
what is less a fact than an aspiration. That, you may 
perhaps say, is a discouraging observation. It is not 
meant to be discouraging. It is meant to be encouraging 
and inspiriting. It is meant to make you realise the 
greatness of the task and the duty which rests upon members 
of the United Empire Club. The greatest living British 
statesman once described himself as a missionary of Empire. 
It was a proud title to assume. But its assumption was 
justified not only by his previous achievements, but by 
his subsequent devotion of all his powers and his whole 
self to the cause to which his heart was given. I think 
that the example of such devotion is a more potent force 
to inspire and to convert than any eloquence, even his 
own. Therefore, though silent, he points the way, and 
what we have to do is to follow in the way which he has 
pointed out, and to become, according to our respective 
capacities and opportunities, ourselves missionaries of 
Empire. When I say that, I do not mean that we are 
always to be talking about the great extent of the Empire, 
about its wealth, its population, and all the rest of it. 
There is too much of that kind of thing. The greatness 
of our heritage appears to me not to be a reason for boast- 



264 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

ing, but a reason for humility. Our forefathers have 
made for this country, for this race, the great position 
which they occupy in the world to-day. The duty of those 
who come after them is to defend it, not only against 
external aggression, but against internal causes of weakness 
and disorganisation. 

The time has passed for looking for any greater extension, 
I do not myself desire any greater extension, of that vast 
dominion. The problem of the future is its better organisa- 
tion. The British Empire as it exists to-day presents two 
aspects. There are our great tropical and sub-tropical 
dependencies, which are kept within the Empire solely 
by the strength of the United Kingdom, by its military 
and naval power, and by the capacity of its people for 
the government and administration of weaker races. If 
either that power or that capacity fail us, the dominion is 
at an end. On the other hand, there is another aspect of 
the Empire, another side to it, and that is the great self- 
governing communities of European blood, mostly of 
British blood. What keeps them within the Empire is 
only their desire and our desire to remain a united people. 
There is no question, no possibility of a question here of 
force or constraint. It is a case of voluntary union of free 
and equal peoples under a common Crown, of which they 
are all equally proud and to which they are all equally 
devoted. The basis is desire for union. The problem is 
to implement that union by common institutions in addi- 
tion to the great common institution and sole existing 
link of the Crown, for it is difficult to see how, in the absence 
of any permanent means for consulting and acting together 
in matters of common concern, we are really to remain a 
united people. That is the work which lies before the 
Imperialists, not only of this country but of all the self- 
governing communities of the British Empire, as we 
understand the term Imperialist to-day. I trust that in 
the accomphshment of that work, which none of us will 
live to see completed, but of which I hope the younger 
among us may see the foundations surely laid, the United 



1907] MISSIONARIES OF EMPIRE 265 

Empire Club will be able to take a distinguished part. I 
have referred especially to the younger members, and I 
appeal particularly to them, because it is on them that 
my hopes are based. The older among us — and I am sorry 
that I have to include myself in that category — have too 
much to unlearn. 

The political ideas, which prevailed in the time of our 
youth, were in the main ideas not wholly favourable to the 
organisation of an Empire such as ours, or to the creation 
of the only bonds which can hold together its great self- 
governing states. They were ideas at once too insular 
and too cosmopolitan. But the younger men who have 
grown up at a time when these political ideas were losing 
their evil dominance, have a better chance of realising the 
facts of the present situation and of finding a way out of 
its difficulties. As I have said, I rely upon them. I rely 
on the slow but steady growth of a stronger sense of the 
immense practical importance of closer union to all the 
scattered communities which compose the British Empire, 
in order to bring us nearer to the goal which we desire to 
reach. I believe that with the spread of education and 
with the persistence — I hope there will be persistence — of 
all those who share our views in preaching them in season 
and out of season to all classes of the community, the 
democracy not only in this country but in the great 
communities of kindred race beyond the seas, will begin 
to realise the enormous peril to all the states which com- 
pose the Empire of the severance of the links at present 
uniting them. I trust that the feeling of that danger, of 
our weakness as isolated states, of our enormous strength 
and security if united, will continually grow, and that 
throughout the Empire there will be a constant accretion 
of the number of those who regard it as the first and highest 
of all political duties to seize every opportunity of multi- 
plying the links which bind us together, and of fostering 
and developing all the forces, material and moral, which 
make for the maintenance of a common citizenship and 
for the strength of a united Empire. 



266 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— May 13, 1908 

Land Values {Scotland) Bill 

If I offer any criticism to this measure, it is not because I 
am personally alarmed about confiscatory measures. Nor 
am I out of sympathy with what I consider the objects 
of this measure, in so far as it is to carry out that separa- 
tion between the different interests in land, especially 
building land, upon the importance of which the Minority 
Report of the Royal Commission has, as I think, justly 
insisted. But I am alarmed lest what I believe to be a 
really useful and necessary reform in rating, should be, 
if I might use a commonplace expression, choked off at 
first sight by its being overloaded with an attempt to 
give effect to certain very extreme and visionary doctrines. 
I am not sure that this insistence upon capital as against 
yearly value is not connected with some ideas of that 
class. The noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor ^) 
has spoken eloquently with regard to overcrowding in great 
cities, and I personally feel great sympathy with what he 
says. I believe there is public advantage, in some cases, 
in inducing landowners to give their land for building, but 
there is also great public advantage, in innumerable cases, 
in keeping land free from buildings. I know that land 
kept open may rapidly appreciate in value, and I am the 
last person to say that appreciated value should escape 
its fair contribution to the national till, but that contri- 
bution should only be exacted when the landowner actually 
realises that appreciated value. We should not exercise on 
him year by year a pressure he may not be able to resist to 
put his land on the market, although he may not wish to do 
so, and it may be in the highest public interest that he should 
not do so. I have no desire to save rich people from con- 
tributing their full share to the National Exchequer, nor do 
I desire to prevent the valuable reform of rating which 
will result from the separation of the permanent interest 
of the landlord in the site from the temporary interest of 

^ Lord Loreburn. 



igoS] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 267 

the tenant in the building. This Bill is not one of very 
great extent or importance, but it is a jfirst attempt, so far 
as I know, in the direction of this valuable reform of rating, 
and for that reason I should like to save it. But if the 
Government are determined, year after year, to tax land- 
lords upon the value that unoccupied land would have 
if it were occupied, then the case of this Bill is hopeless. 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— May 20, 1908 
Preferential Trade 

[On a motion by the Duke of Marlborough ' to call attention to recent 
changes which have been made in the tariffs of the self-governing 
colonies for promoting their economic development and the extension of 
their trade relations with the United Kingdom and foreign countries, and 
the desirability of increasing the productive power of the Mother Country 
and the Empire as a whole by the arrangement of reciprocal preferences.'] 

Every year that passes confirms me more strongly in 
views the very opposite of the views in which I have been 
brought up, and the very opposite of the views which have 
been so eloquently put before the House by the noble 
Lords to whom I have referred.^ I am sure that this House, 
which has always tolerated the strong expression of strong 
convictions, will sympathise with me in the very serious 
task which now lies before me. It is difficult to select from 
the arguments which have been addressed to your lord- 
ships against the views put forward by the noble Duke, 
those which most require reply. I cannot possibly attempt 
to deal with them all. But I will seek to direct your 
attention for a short time to one or two which seem to me 
to be the most weighty. 

First of all, may I say a word on the subject of India ? 
I think we are all agreed that, in the consideration of 
this question, the effect of any changes in our commercial 
policy upon India must be regarded as of the very highest 
importance. I am glad that emphasis has been laid upon 
this branch of the subject to-night, because, if I may 

^ Lords Cromer and Wolverhampton. 



268 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

criticise my own side, I should like to say that in the argu- 
ments of the advocates of preference insufficient attention 
has hitherto been applied to the Indian part of the case. 
But I for one am unable to follow the argument that we 
are debarred from adopting a policy which we believe 
would be of great commercial benefit to the other portions 
of the Empire, because of its reflex action upon India. 
We have had quoted to us the dispatch from the Viceroy's 
Council in India under Lord Curzon, giving not indeed a 
negative to the proposals of preferential trading within 
the Empire, but certainly expressing grave misgivings as 
to the effect which preferential trading might have upon 
India. I did not come here prepared for this particular 
point, but my memory must entirely fail me, if I am mis- 
taken in thinking that the gentleman who was at that time 
the financial adviser to the Government of India — Sir 
Edward Law — took a different view upon this matter, 
and, indeed, is an advocate of preferential trading in the 
interest of India herself. Whatever may be the view which 
he took at that time there is no doubt that that gentleman, 
the Financial Adviser to the Government of India — and 
a man who has been Financial Adviser to the Government 
of India certainly counts for something in a question of 
this kind — is at this day a strong advocate of preferential 
trade in the interests of India, inasmuch as he has just 
written the preface to a book on this subject, which dis- 
cusses the whole question with remarkable freshness and 
ability, and which is from first to last one of the strongest 
pamphlets published in favour of preferential trade within 
the Empire. I mean India and the Empire, by Mr. Webb. 
So far I have failed to understand what is the injury 
which it is feared the introduction of preferential trade 
within the Empire is going to do to India. It has been 
pointed out to us that the export trade of India is of 
vast importance to her. Obviously, and it is of vast 
importance to us. So far as her export trade to this 
country is concerned, that certainly is not going to be 
injured by an arrangement which will give her an advantage 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 269 

in our market over her foreign competitors. Are her 
exports to foreign countries to be injured ? Why should 
they be ? Do foreign countries at present buy of India 
for love of India ? On the contrary, they impose heavy 
duties — in many cases exceedingly heavy duties — ^with the 
object of keeping Indian goods out of their markets. They 
buy from India the things which they want most — the raw 
materials which are absolutely essential to them for their 
own industries. And they will continue to buy them — 
they must continue to buy them — ^whatever policy India 
adopts. The present system and position under which 
foreign countries do all they can to keep out Indian manu- 
factures — and we are powerless to do anything to assist 
India — is a most extraordinary one. Take the exports of 
jute. Foreign countries derive great quantities of the raw 
material of jute from India, and they will continue to buy 
as much as ever they can get, whatever system of tariff 
may be adopted in this country, the Colonies, and India, 
because they want it to compete with us. They encourage 
the importation of raw jute from India, but they put heavy 
and prohibitive taxes upon the import of the manufactured 
article. What is the result ? Indian jute is taken to 
foreign countries to be made up into the manufactured 
article, and that manufactured article is then imported 
into England, to compete with our own manufactures, 
and is competing with them to our detriment. 

Is there not something most unnatural in an arrange- 
ment and system under which foreign countries that 
exclude the manufactures of India buy the raw material 
from India, and then import it into England to compete 
with our own manufactures of the same raw material, 
and the profit of converting the raw material of the Empire 
into finished goods is taken away from the workers of the 
Empire by the foreigner ? My contention is, that there are 
obvious respects in which India wiU benefit from the system 
of preferential trading within the Empire, and that the 
fear that she wiU be damaged depends entirely upon the 
assumption that foreign governments will try to strike at 



270 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

us through India — ^to punish us for adopting a principle 
in our own tariff legislation which they all adopt themselves. 
I do not believe in the least in this bugbear that foreign 
nations are all going to turn round and punish us for doing 
what they all do. No doubt they are very glad of a system 
under which they tax our imports as much as they please, 
and we never retaliate. But on what conceivable prin- 
ciple, either of equity or respect for the public opinion of 
the world, or for their own interest, are they going to adopt 
this poUcy of punishing us ? And if they do, how are they 
going to adopt it ? They already tax our goods in every 
case in which they do not want them. It seems to me that 
we are excessively timorous if we think that as a nation, 
as an Empire, we are not in a position to take a course 
which is freely taken by our own Colonies and by almost 
every foreign country. I deprecate the assumption that 
foreign countries are so unreasonable, that they are going 
to depart from the policy they have always hitherto pursued 
of using their tariffs for their own interests, and that they 
are going to punish themselves and cut their own throats 
in order to penalise us for doing what they all do. 

Passing from India to the more general question of the 
effect of mutual advantages in respect of tariffs upon the 
trade of different parts of the Empire, I must say I depre- 
cate most strongly the assumption which has been made 
by the noble viscount who has just addressed us, that 
because the Colonies are protectionist, and likely to remain 
protectionist, therefore the advantages we should derive 
from preference in their markets are never likely to be 
very considerable. That seems to me to be the root 
fallacy of aU those who take a strong line opposed to pre- 
ferential tariffs. Let me say at once, that in my view of 
preferential trade I am unaffected by the extent to which 
our Colonies may adopt protection. I am unaffected by 
the hope or fear that a preferential system may lead to 
general adoption of free trade throughout the Empire. I 
am somewhat doubtful of the advantages of such a general 
system of free trade, but we need not discuss that now. 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 271 

Our whole case rests upon this contention, that however 
much the Colonies protect their own manufactures — and, 
perhaps, even in consequence of that protection of their 
own manufactures — they are bound to be great importers 
and great buyers, and the difficulty which presses on all 
sides of getting sufficient markets for our own exports 
makes it a matter of immense importance to us that we 
should have the lion's share of that enormous amount of 
importations which the Colonies, however much they 
protect, are going to require. My contention is, that 
however much these great and growing countries may 
protect industries in which they are specially interested, 
they wiU stiU be great buyers from the outside world, and 
the question is whether or not we are to be the principal 
sellers. They all wish us to be. They are all anxious to 
buy from us. I admit that the Colonies are keen about 
protecting their own industries, and I rather sympathise 
with them ; but let them protect as much as they please, 
they are going to be great importers. If a free trade or 
less-protected Canada is good for seventy or ninety million 
dollars worth of imports, a highly protected Canada 
would be good for three hundred miUion dollars. That 
is what it is coming to. Under a protective system 
the imports of the Colonies are growing enormously, just 
as the imports of protected Germany are growing enor- 
mously. The idea that the adoption of protection by a 
country is going to reduce its foreign trade is exploded by 
the facts all around us. Highly protected countries are 
continually increasing their foreign trade. Granted that 
the Colonies are all protectionist, what is the advantage 
which we now have and which we are in danger of 
losing ? It is the advantage of the possession of a prefer- 
ence which we calculate will give us the lion's share in the 
purchases of those countries, which are already of such 
great importance, and which have such immense futures. 
That the Colonies should continue to buy from us rather than 
from the foreigner the vast mass of articles which they re- 
quire, that is the point. The danger which we run is that we 



272 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

may no longer be going to get the lion's share of these enor- 
mous purchases of the Colonies ; that if we do nothing on our 
side to encourage preferential trade throughout the Empire, 
the immense advantage which we now enjoy, and which 
will be so much greater as time goes on and the trade of 
the Colonies develops, will gradually disappear. That is 
the danger with which we are confronted, the danger of 
losing the present great advantage, and the much greater 
future advantage, of being the principal suppliers of the 
great markets of the Colonies. The Colonies have taken 
the lead in this matter of introducing the system of pre- 
ferential trade. They have done so from two motives. 
In the first place, there is the motive, freely and eloquently 
admitted by the late President of the Board of Trade, the 
present Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he said they 
had acted in this matter from a spirit of comradeship and 
also from a spirit of affection. That is perfectly true. 
Their spirit of comradeship and affection may not go so 
far as the sacrifice of their own interests. Why should 
we wish it ? It is sufficient for us that, while safeguarding 
their own interests, they are anxious to give us the advan- 
tage in their own markets as against the foreigner, not as 
against their own producers. They will protect them- 
selves first, but they are anxious that such goods as they 
require to import shall be bought from other parts of 
the Empire rather than from foreign countries. I have 
said they are influenced by considerations of kinship and 
affection. They are also influenced, no doubt, by the 
hope that in taking this line they will hold out sufiicient 
inducements to the Mother Country to follow in the same 
course. 

It is perfectly evident, it has been emphasised by colonial 
statesman after colonial statesman, that the preference 
which they at present give, which cannot be described as 
inconsiderable, is less than the preference which they would 
be prepared to give, if they were to meet with any corre- 
sponding return on the part of the Mother Country. There- 
fore, we must not estimate the value of the preference 



igoS] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 273 

merely by the position as it is, but by the position as it 
might be. But do not let any of us under-estimate the 
importance of the position as it is. It is preference which 
in the case of Canada, has converted a ten years' fall in 
British imports from seven millions to five millions into a ten 
years' rise from five millions to thirteen millions. Surely 
that is not a small matter. It is preference which in 
four years has increased our imports into New Zealand by 
three millions, by 40 per cent., while at the same time 
the corresponding imports from foreign countries have 
hardly increased at aU. These New Zealand figures are 
of the greatest possible moment. Here is this immense 
increase of three millions in the importation of British 
goods into a comparatively small country within four or 
five years as compared with hardly any increase in the 
importation of foreign goods. What had been the case 
during previous years ? During the previous eight or ten 
years, although the imports into New Zealand generally 
were increasing, the foreign imports increased over 100 
per cent., while the increase of our imports was infinitesimal. 
Preference has had the effect of entirely altering the 
relation between foreign goods and British goods in the 
growing market of New Zealand. The noble Lord who 
sits in front of me said he was not aware that New Zealand 
had made any reduction in the duties on British goods. 
If so, it strengthens my argument. The more protec- 
tionist New Zealand is, the more do the figures of New 
Zealand illustrate my main point, the necessity of our 
having the lion's share of the imports of highly protec- 
tionist countries. I have dwelt upon the advantage, as it 
seems to me, which we derive from the preference accorded 
to us by the Colonies. 

What fills me with alarm is the undoubted and indubit- 
able fact, that without reciprocity we cannot long enjoy 
these advantages. Let there be no doubt about this. 
You may say, if the Colonies give us this preference from 
motives of affection, why should they withdraw it because 
we do not respond ? I am perfectly certain they do not 

s 



274 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

wish to withdraw it, but they may be unable to help them- 
selves. I have pointed out that the Colonies are great 
importers for the purpose of their own development ; they 
are great buyers, and, like all other buyers, they have to 
look after markets, in which they can sell, in order to pay 
for the great quantity of goods which they require to buy. 
They are in a world in which, rightly or wrongly, if any 
nation wishes to have a position of advantage in the 
markets of others, the only way in which it can get it 
is by a system of mutual concession. The market in which 
they are most desirous to have a position of advantage is 
the great British market. But if they cannot get a posi- 
tion of advantage there, they must look for it elsewhere ; 
and in looking for it elsewhere they are confronted by the 
fact that, in order to obtain a position of advantage in 
foreign markets, they are obliged to make concessions 
upon their tariff, which reduce the value of the preference 
which they have given to the Mother Country. What has 
just happened between Canada and France has been most 
clearly explained by the noble Duke. There is one further 
element about it to which I cannot help calling attention. 
Canada did not start with the desire to give up as much 
of the British preference as she was ultimately forced to 
give up. The offer, with which Canada went to France, 
was that France should take her intermediate tariff, which 
would have given France a considerable advantage as 
compared with other foreign nations importing into Canada, 
while leaving a considerable preference to Great Britain. 
But in the course of the negotiations Canada was forced 
from that position, and she was driven to make a large 
number of special rates, which reduced the distance between 
the tariff given to France and the tariff enjoyed by Great 
Britain on many articles almost to vanishing point. There 
you have the process actually going on under your eyes 
— colonies anxious to keep a prerogative position in their 
markets for this country and yet, in the case of Canada, 
driven from that position by the necessity of their own 
export requirements. There can be no doubt whatever 



i908] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 275 

of their desire to have a position of advantage in the British 
market. If it is to be denied them they must try and get 
it somewhere, and in the process of fighting for it they 
will be obliged to throw over first one item and then 
another which are at present favourable to Great Britain. 
That process has already begun, Canada has been driven 
from her original position, and has been obliged not only 
to give France much more than she wished to give, having 
regard to her desire to retain the benefit to this country, but 
also to give it to something like twenty other countries. 
One or two more treaties like the treaty between France 
and Canada will have the effect of destroying our pre- 
ferential advantage in the Canadian market altogether. 
It will be said, perhaps, on behalf of the Government, 
' We admit all this. Perhaps we do not go as far as you 
do. We do not estimate as highly as you do the value of 
Colonial Preference. Still, we admit it has a certain value. 
But what are we to do ? How do you expect us to help 
in this matter ? ' My Lords, the present Chancellor of the 
Exchequer has put in language of much greater eloquence 
than I can command the importance of the issue that is 
involved in the system of developing the trade of the 
Empire by mutual concessions. He said : ' In Great 
Britain we have the greatest produce market in the world. 
We are the greatest purchasers of produce raised and manu- 
factured outside our boundaries. A very large proportion of 
this produce can very well be raised in the Colonies, and any 
reasonable and workable plan that would tend to increase 
the proportion of that produce that is bought by us from the 
Colonies and by the Colonies from us, and from each other, 
must necessarily increase the resources of the Empire as 
a whole. A considerable part of the surplus population 
of the United Kingdom which now goes to foreign lands 
in search of a livelihood might then find it to its profit 
to pitch its tent somewhere under the flag, and the Empire 
would gain in riches, material, and men. We agree with 
our colonial comrades that all this is worth concentrated 
effort, even if that effort at the outset costs us something, 



276 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 20, 

the federation of free commonwealths is worth making 
some sacrifice for. One never knows when its strength 
may be essential to the great cause of human freedom, and 
that is priceless.' Concerted effort worth making some 
sacrifice for, even if it costs us something ! I will not ask 
what sacrifice we are making, because my firm convic- 
tion is that no sacrifice is required. But effort is required. 
What effort of any sort or kind has been made to preserve 
those great objects which have been described in the passage 
which I have read, and which we see slipping from our 
grasp ? I suppose we shall be told that the only effort 
worth making, the only effort which could be productive 
of any great result, would be a tax upon food imported 
from foreign countries, from which tax food coming from 
the Colonies would be wholly or partially exempt. Now, 
I might take the point, that a great deal could be done 
without imposing any fresh tax at all. I might point out 
that there was no answer given to the request addressed 
by the colonial statesmen to our Government, to give 
colonial products some advantage on the articles which 
we at present tax. But I prefer to face the matter squarely, 
and to say that, from my point of view, the imposition of a 
2s. a quarter duty on corn, and corresponding low duties 
on other articles of food imported from foreign countries, 
would be an extraordinarily low price to pay for a posi- 
tion of permanent advantage for British merchants and 
British workmen in supplying the needs of the other 
portions of the Empire, with all the enormous industrial 
future which is in store for them. If it is contended that 
such a duty would fall heavily on any particular class of 
the population, it is perfectly easy to meet that diffi- 
culty by the readjustment of our existing taxes. As a 
nation we should lose nothing whatever by the imposition 
of that tax. We should have so much more revenue, 
which we could either use for any purposes for which we 
required it, or we could make corresponding reductions in 
other taxes. And as a nation we should gain the immense 
advantage of that enhanced trade which would ensue. 



i908] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 277 

The question whether we can afford to introduce taxes 
in this country, which would enable us to give a 
preference to the Colonies, and so obtain those advan- 
tages of which I have spoken, is a purely economic point. 
But there is another point dwelt on with great force by 
the noble earl, which I may call the political and moral 
point. It is said that, if we adopt a system of preferential 
trade throughout the Empire, it will lead to perpetual 
disputes and ill-feeling, and that it will tend to separate us 
rather tha.n to tie us together. I believe it is the universal 
experience of mankind that the profitable exchange of 
goods between one country and another is one of the causes 
most tending to amity between those countries. All history 
bears it out. But the system we advocate is a system 
which has for its principal object the increase of mutually 
profitable interchange of goods between this country and 
the other dominions of the Crown. Why should the influ- 
ence which increase of trade has always exercised be reversed 
in this particular instance ? Will not the very fact of our 
having an increased interest in the trade of the Colonies, and 
their having an increased interest in ours, of itself tend to 
closer relationship, rather than to the reverse ? But, it may 
be said, we shall fight about the terms. No, we shall not 
fight about the terms, if we grasp the true principle of pre- 
ference which I have tried to explain. There might be 
serious quarrels arising over a universal free -trade system 
within the Empire. If the nascent industries of any portion 
of the Empire were to find themselves crushed by dumping 
from the more advanced countries, I could quite under- 
stand that that would lead to ill-feeling, and to a disposi- 
tion to rebel against a general system. But as long as every 
part of the Empire is allowed to exercise the greatest 
freedom in the formation of its tariff in its own interest, 
and in the development of its own trade, how could it 
possibly lead to ill-feeling, that in that trade which was left, 
in respect to the imports which it still required, it should 
be dealing rather with other portions of the Empire than 
with foreign countries ? Does that leave room for any 



278 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 21, 

cause of quarrel whatsoever ? I fail entirely to under- 
stand how it is contended that it would do so. There is 
no doubt a possibility that pressure may be put from time 
to time upon Colonial Governments to protect their traders 
more against English manufactures. It would be regret- 
table if that were to take place. But even if that pressure 
was yielded to, it would not necessarily destroy the system ; 
indeed, it would not even impair it, because they can do 
what Australia has done, and what I think has been very 
unreasonably criticised. If they want to protect their own 
goods against English competition, they can raise their 
duties. It would be very unfortunate ; but as long as, 
whatever duties they impose, they stiU differentiate 
between us and the foreigner, we can still retain the 
advantage on which I have so strongly insisted — the 
advantage of a preferential position in what must be great 
markets, whatever the degree of protection. Do not let 
us forget one other point, which has perhaps not been 
referred to at all in this discussion, and that is that the 
interest which we have in this matter is not only the develop- 
ment of our own trade, it is also the development of the 
trade of the Colonies. If we are cosmopolitans, it does not 
matter whether we deal more with foreign countries or 
with our own Colonies. But if the Empire is to be 
regarded in any sense as one body-politic, then surely, next 
to the development of our own trade in this country, it is 
of importance to us to develop the trade of our Colonies : 
and it should be reckoned a matter of the greatest interest 
to us to deal with them rather than with foreign nations. 
I do not, of course, undervalue our foreign trade, nor need 
it be at aU injuriously affected by increase of trade with 
the Colonies. But what I wish to point out is, that an 
increase of our trade with the Colonies is of greater value 
than an equal increase of our trade with foreign countries. 
Trade benefits both parties, and if it is trade within the 
Empire, the Empire enjoys a double benefit — the benefit 
to us and the benefit to those with whom we trade — 
whereas in trade outside our borders there is only one 
benefit. I should deeply regret if in anything I have said 



igoS] THE FRIENDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 279 

I seemed to overlook the importance of this aspect of the 
matter — the great importance of a system of preferential 
trade within the Empire from the point of view of 
developing those great new countries under the British 
Crown, rather than developing countries whose wealth 
does not add, as their wealth does, to the strength of the 
Empire as a whole. 

IMPERIAL SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION 
May 21, 1908 

The Friends of South Africa 

[The Duke of Westminster, the President, entertained the members of 
the Imperial South African Association on this date, and proposed the 
toast of ' The Friends of South Africa,' coupled with Lord Milner's name. 
The following was Lord Milner's speech in reply] : — 

I COULD have wished, for reasons which I shall explain 
directly, that the task of replying to this toast had fallen 
to some other speaker. But as your Grace and other 
leading members of the Association were good enough to 
make a point of my speaking here to-night, what has 
happened in the past made it impossible for me to refuse. 
This is the third or fourth successive annual dinner of 
this Association at which I have been pressed to speak, 
and hitherto I have not done so. And yet I owe a great 
deal to this Association. And what is of much greater 
importance, the country owes it a great deal for the excellent 
work it has done in more than one crisis of the Empire's 
fortunes in South Africa. It would ill become me, who 
have had better opportunity than most men of knowing 
how great these services have been, not to bear testimony 
to them. I am to-night therefore only paying a debt, 
discharging an obligation, and one that I gladly discharge 
in obeying your behests. But for that, I should greatly 
have preferred not to say anything about South Africa 
at the present time. One reason is that I have not much 
that is cheerful to say, and am not fond of jeremiads. 
Another is that I know many people consider me biassed 
on this question. Now, I do not plead guilty to any bias ; 
I am ever on my guard against it. It is only natural that 



280 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 21, 

a man who has devoted the best years of his life to a par- 
ticular work, devoted them absolutely and without looking 
to right or left, who has then seen most of that work undone, 
the policy which it had been his duty and his pride to carry 
out reversed, and the people who had leant upon him 
scattered like chaff before the wind, and many of them 
treated with great injustice, I say that it is only natural 
that a man in such a position should be inclined to take 
a somewhat sombre view alike of the present and of the 
future. I am aware of that danger, and therefore, what- 
ever my personal feelings may be, I am determined not 
to let them sway my utterances. I would prefer to keep 
silence altogether. But if I must speak, I will take care 
not to say anything which by the strictest criterion I can 
apply seems in any way exaggerated, and especially I will 
be very careful not to say anything to create difficulties for 
the present rulers of South Africa. 

Why, indeed, should I seek to do so ? I have no quarrel 
with them at all, no complaint to make of their action. 
They are doing many things of which I disapprove, but 
they are not doing anything which it was not absolutely 
certain beforehand, and indeed inevitable, that they would 
do ; nothing which to them, I quite believe, does not appear 
perfectly natural and right. The present Government of 
South Africa is government by the commandoes. They 
have been put into power by the British Government. 
His Majesty's present advisers have from the first moment 
of their coming into office steadily pursued a policy which I 
will not say was intended to result — I do not know that, 
nor do I wish to go into questions of motive — but which 
certainly was bound to result, and which as a matter of 
fact has resulted, in placing all political power in the 
Transvaal and Orange River Colony in the hands of those 
who in the late South African struggle fought against this 
country to the last, and in the Cape in the hands of the 
party which during that same struggle to a great extent 
actively assisted, and in any case altogether sympathised 
with our opponents. Under these circumstances the posi- 
tion of those South Africans, who in that struggle fought 



igoSJ THE FRIENDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 281 

for or sympathised with this country, is evidently not an 
enviable one. It is inevitable that they should be made 
to feel, some in a greater and some in a less degree, that 
their fortunes have undergone a great change for the worse, 
that they should look forward to the future with anxiety, 
and realise that they have an uphill fight before them to 
maintain their own character, traditions, and ideals, and 
to preserve for themselves and their children any sub- 
stantial influence in moulding the future destinies of South 
Africa. They see changes being made in the laws in respect 
of education, of language, of local government, of which 
they do not approve. They regard them, and rightly 
regard them, as part of a general change of system which 
will make the South Africa of the future resemble in many, 
though not in aU, respects the South Africa of pre-war 
days, and certainly make it very unlike the British South 
Africa of which they had fondly dreamed. Add to this 
that many of them, I speak especially of those who held 
office during the temporary period of Crown Colony Govern- 
ment, have been treated with grave injustice, have been 
deprived of offices which they reasonably regarded as 
permanent, or have suffered reductions in salaries which 
they reasonably regarded as fixed. 

But here let me say that for that injustice the present 
holders of power in South Africa are not the parties chiefly 
responsible. They might have acted with more considera- 
tion. In my opinion they would have been wise to do so. 
They would have been wise to avoid certain proceedings 
which, to put it mildly, have an unpleasant appearance of 
jobbery. They might have spared us the comedy of pre- 
tending that all these dismissals and reductions of pay are 
due to necessary retrenchment, when in view of the liber- 
ality of their expenditure in other respects — in such a 
matter as Ministerial salaries, for instance — they are 
evidently not so hard up as we are asked to believe. But 
these are details. On the main issue they are entitled to 
say that they were under no obligation to consider the 
interests of the officials of the late administration, when 
the British Government did not consider them. It was the 



282 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 21, 

business of the British Government to safeguard the 
interests of men who had served it loyally before handing 
them over to the new rulers, who could not be expected 
to regard them with any degree of sympathy. 

This business of the officials is a very deplorable business. 
It is a stain on the credit of our country. But it is only one 
conspicuous illustration of a policy which is altogether most 
deplorable. In my judgment this drastic revolution in South 
Africa could and ought to have been avoided. It was not 
only possible, but comparativelyeasy ; it was the course natur- 
ally marked out for us, and from which it required strange 
perversity to depart, to pursue a policy which, while just 
and even generous to our former enemies, would not have 
been unjust to our friends ; which would have involved 
no sudden volte-face ; and which would have given the 
South Africa of the future not only a more British com- 
plexion, but would have preserved much of the good work 
of the past five years, the waste of which is a permanent 
injury to the country and to all its inhabitants, Dutch, 
British, or native. And when we hear what has happened 
spoken of as a great triumph of statesmanship, as if there 
were something wonderfully original or ingenious about 
just throwing up the cards ; when we are told how generous 
we have been, at the expense, mind you, of our friends 
and of the future of the Empire ; when we are told that 
our former enemies will always love us for it, just as we 
were told after the reversal of policy in 1881 ; when it is 
trumpeted abroad that racialism is dead in South Africa, 
although the policy at present being pursued is as unmis- 
takably racial in spirit as that of the late government 
of the Cape (Dr. Jameson's government) was admittedly 
the reverse — I say when it is attempted to foist this version 
of South African affairs upon the public, it is not only 
justifiable, it is necessary, to enter once more a perfectly 
cool but emphatic protest against such illusions. In any 
case it would be far too early days to boast of the success 
of what has happened. The ink is hardly dry on these 
new constitutions. But what has transpired so far is, to 



igoS] THE FRIENDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 283 

put it mildly, quite as calculated, far more calculated, to 
inspire us with uneasy forebodings than to justify pre- 
mature rejoicing. There is indeed great jubilation that 
the present rulers of South Africa have accepted the flag. 
Were their friends here then really alarmed that they 
might already be pulling it down ? For my part I never 
shared or encouraged such a fear. I believe they have 
once for all accepted it, and of that I am heartily glad. It 
may not mean all that the flag ought to mean. It may mean 
comparatively little. But it does always mean something. 
We have that much to the good any way. And we have 
this much further to the good, that the Boer Government 
of to-day — especially in the Transvaal — though not an 
atom less racial in spirit, is certainly very much more 
enlightened, much less corrupt, and much more suscep- 
tible to public opinion than in pre-war days. These things 
are the good points and they are important. But when 
you have said that, you have said all that is in any way 
encouraging. For the rest we may be as hopeful as we 
please — always a good thing to be hopeful. But we must 
not allow ourselves to confound hopes with realities. 

And now, having sought quite dispassionately to bring 
before you the real state of affairs, let me ask what ought 
to be our own attitude in view of it ? What can the 
Imperial South African Association, what can the friends 
of South Africa in this country, do to help under the cir- 
cumstances ? It is easy to say what they ought not to do. 
Their role in the future is necessarily different from their 
role in the past. It is a more restricted role. We may 
approve or disapprove of what has been done. But it is 
an accomplished fact, and we must look facts in the face. 
Direct interference from this country with the affairs of 
South Africa, except to safeguard some unmistakably 
Imperial interest, should be out of the question. I do 
not say it may not be attempted, but I say it would be 
wrong to attempt it. As a nation, we must stand by the 
consequences of what, as a nation, we have done. If there 
are any of those who in their disapproval of what may have 



284 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 21, 

happened or may hereafter happen in South Africa, with 
that exception which I have aheady made, would Hke to 
throw the weight of the British Government, not the present 
Government, but any Government, into the scale to put things 
right, I would say to them : ' Beware how you embark on 
any course so fraught with inconsistency and danger. You 
will embarrass, much more than you will strengthen, those 
whom you wish to help, and you will excite resentment, 
and in this case justified resentment, in other quarters, 
among men who, however you disagree with them, are 
now your fellow-citizens, enjoying equal rights of self- 
government, and whom you have as little right to dictate 
to as they have to dictate to you. Moreover, you would 
be shaking a principle which, as far as the self-governing 
Dominions are concerned, is vital to the existence of the 
Empire.' 

But if direct interference is out of the question, if our 
role, as I have said, is necessarily a more restricted one, 
it does not mean that there is nothing we can do, or that 
our interest in the welfare of South Africa will be, or ought 
to be, in any way abated. It is essential to the Imperial 
idea that the welfare of any part of the Empire should be 
regarded as a matter of vital interest to every other part, 
and there are many ways, short of direct interference, in 
which they can all help one another. We can and we ought 
to assist any good enterprise in South Africa which is of 
a non-political character. And even in affairs political we 
have a right to express, temperately and without the 
appearance of dictation, our own opinion. And the public 
opinion of the rest of the Empire is in these days of grow- 
ing intimacy and closer communications a force of increasing 
importance in every portion of it. But in order that it 
may be a beneficial force it must be reasonable, and, above 
all, it must be weU-informed. There is a great field of 
usefulness before those who seek to instruct the people of 
this country about the affairs of the out-lying parts of the 
Empire. That is another direction in which this Associa- 
tion can do a great deal. And in proposing, as I now have 



igoS] THE FRIENDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 285 

the honour to do, the health of the Imperial South African 
Association, and coupling with it the name of Sir Gilbert 
Parker, who has done so much excellent work as Chairman 
of Committee, I may say that I feel sure that, under his 
guidance, no opportunity of good and useful work will be 
neglected, and that it will be done in a broad and liberal, 
and in no narrow, acrimonious spirit. The Association, 
I am sure, wiU direct its attention to illuminating the 
problems of the present and the future, and not dwell too 
exclusively on the controversies, though we cannot wholly 
escape them, which are the heritage of the past. 

The question of absorbing immediate interest in South 
Africa is the question of the amalgamation of the several 
colonies into one self-governing Dominion. All parties are 
agreed as to the desirability of such amalgamation. The 
problem consists in overcoming the material obstacles in 
the way, and deciding the terms and the extent of the new 
union. These are questions for the people of South Africa 
to decide. But they are questions on which the friends 
of South Africa in this country are bound to form, and in 
considerate language to express, a well-instructed opinion. 
I will not attempt to enter into that question to-night. 
It is premature in any case to discuss details, but I may be 
allowed before sitting down to express a hope of a general 
character on two points, which are not of detail but of 
principle. In the first place, let me say that I trust that 
the dominant party in South Africa will not attempt to 
settle the question over the heads of the minority. Let 
it be a national settlement, in making which all parties 
are fairly represented, and in which they can aU feel that 
they have had a share. That is a view which, as I read his 
words, has been lately expressed by Mr. Smuts, and I hope 
it is the view of all the South African governments. It 
is true that they might be able to settle the matter, so to 
speak, off their own bats, and in accordance merely with 
their own views and those of their supporters. But such 
a settlement would bring them a bitter harvest of resent- 
ment, of unrest, and of subsequent strife. Whatever the 



286 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 22, 

temptation may be, and whatever the pressure on the 
part of their more extreme followers may be, they will, 
if they are true statesmen, eschew such a course. Now 
that is one big principle. The second is that in the South 
African constitution of the future due regard should be 
shown to the interests of the native population. South 
Africa must be a white man's country ruled by white 
men. But that does not mean that the natives should 
have no rights, or even that they should be debarred, for 
ever and in all cases, from any share of political influence. 
It must be the object of white statesmanship to raise the 
coloured populations, and it is inconsistent with that ideal 
to make an absolute bar, and to lay it down that no native, 
however high he may rise in the scale of civilisation, is ever 
to acquire the full rights of citizenship. Moreover, and 
this is for the immediate future of far greater importance, 
I trust that no attempt will be made to break up the 
native tribes or to deprive them, in their own districts, of 
a reasonable measure of self-government. Some of them, 
notably the Basuto, have shown themselves eminently 
capable of it. I note, as a fact of good augury, that a 
more liberal spirit in regard to native policy has latterly 
grown up among leading men in both the great white races. 
We cannot tell how far it may prevail, but we must do 
what we can to encourage it. My Lords and gentlemen, 
the future of South Africa is a vast unknown region, fraught 
with great possibilities of good and evil, both to ourselves 
and the Empire. I do not pretend that it is not a subject 
of anxiety, an anxiety which is not lessened by the fact that 
we can do comparatively so little to influence the course 
of affairs ; that we have parted too soon, as I think, with 
the power and the right to influence it. Whether South 
Africa will ultimately remain a part of the Empire, whether 
the Empire itself will tend to become more and more 
one body-politic, or more and more a mere geographical 
expression — these things are hidden to us behind the veil 
which no human foresight can penetrate. But in any 
case we wish her well, and mean to do anything in our 



i9o8] NATIONAL SERVICE AND THE LAW 287 

power, even if it be little, to promote her welfare. We 
wish her well because she is a sister nation, and we are 
anxious for the progress and development of every member 
of the Imperial family. But we wish her well also for her 
own sake. Whatever the political relations between us, 
the ties of other kinds, ties of kindred, of association, of 
common interests, must always be very close ones, and I 
am sure that among my audience to-night there are many 
who, like myself, have felt the fascination of South Africa, 
who will remain all their lives under its spell, and who 
have conceived an affection, which even war and profound 
political differences have not effaced, for every section of 
her people. 

WEYBRIDGE.— May 22, 1908 

National Service and the Law 

[From a speecli delivered at a meeting of the County of Surrey branch 
of the National Service League.] 

The objects of the League are twofold : First to induce 
the people of this country to accept the principle that every 
able-bodied man of military age who is fit, is bound to 
be ready to take part in the defence of his country ; and 
secondly, that in order to give practical effect to that prin- 
ciple, the law should provide for the military training of 
all our youths, with certain definite and weU-recognised 
exceptions. These, however, should really be exceptional 
cases ; the general rule should be military training, equally 
for men of aU classes, enforced by law. This enforcement 
by law is what a great many people stick at. They say, 
' We agree with you that it is the duty of every able-bodied 
man, in case of need, to take part in the defence of his 
country ; we should be glad if they would all enlist in the 
Territorial Army ; but the idea of compelling them to do 
it is contrary to our conception of the freedom which is so 
characteristic of our British race. And besides, is not 
a volunteer worth half a dozen men who are compelled to 
do a thing 1 ' This is the difficulty I want to face. I do 



288 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

not attempt to blink the fact that the programme of the 
National Service League cannot be carried out without 
compulsion. But is compulsion necessarily so odious ? 
The compulsion would come from law, made by the chosen 
representatives of the majority of the people of the country. 
It follows, therefore, that at least a majority of the people 
would be compelling themselves. It is impossible to con- 
ceive such a great change being introduced except with 
an overwhelming force of public opinion behind it. It 
may be said : ' If the majority of the people are willing, 
what need have you for compelling law ? ' That is just 
where a great mistake is made. A national army is not 
going to create itself, however willing even the majority 
of the people may be. There must be organisation ; there 
must be a carefuUy-worked-out system ; and law alone can 
ensure that co-operation which is obviously essential to 
a great national system. Even a volunteer army is subject 
to discipline and compulsion at every turn ; therefore the 
whole question is whether people are to be expected them- 
selves to take the initiative in submitting to compulsion, 
or whether it is to be applied to every fit person without 
such individual initiative. Assuming it to be the deliberate 
conviction of the majority of the people of this country 
that military training should be general, what is the objec- 
tion to making every man go up for training at a certain 
age ? The law would merely be telling them how and when 
to do that, which the majority were perfectly willing to do. 
Granted that £L minority are unwilling, or perhaps only 
reluctant, not keen enough themselves to take the initiative ; 
are we to be content that the whole thing should be ruined, 
and the safety of this country jeopardised, because of the 
existence of that minority of laggards ? I can understand 
a man saying that a national army is not necessary, 
but I cannot understand his agreeing that it is necessary, 
and yet leaving it to individual caprice or convenience to 
decide whether we should get it or not. People are com- 
pelled by law to be educated, to keep their houses in a 
certain state of sanitary repair, to drive on one side of the 



i9o8] THE TWO EMPIRES 289 

road, to do a hundred and one things every day of their 
lives. In all these respects the majority coerce the minority, 
sometimes for trivial, sometimes for doubtful objects. 
But there is one object, in respect of which it is a terrible, 
an unspeakable thing to have such coercion ; and that 
is precisely the supreme object of all — the defence of our 
country, of our lives and property, of all that is dear to 
us. With regard to this object alone, the will of the majority 
is to be impotent. No ; I contend that a general system 
invoking the co-operation of all citizens is not merely the 
only way of ensuring a national army, but the only fair 
way of obtaining it, and it is just this fairness which, I 
believe, when the thing is properly understood, will make 
it generally acceptable. The average citizen, though the 
idea may at first be distasteful to him, will be perfectly 
willing to undergo military training if he is brought to 
recognise the necessity of it, and if his neighbours have got 
to undergo it too. 

ROYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE.— June 16, 1908 
The Two Empires 

I HAVE to thank the council of the Royal Colonial Institute 
for their courtesy in allowing me to address you to-night 
without conforming to the usual practice of circulating 
a summary of my remarks beforehand. Owing to the 
number and variety of my engagements at this very busy 
season of the year, I have been unable to prepare my 
address in time to comply with this requirement, or indeed 
to prepare it at aU with such care as, had it been possible, 
I should have been most anxious to give to a paper to be 
read before such a body as the Royal Colonial Institute. 
I must indeed ask for very special indulgence from my 
audience, consisting as it does of men who have great 
familiarity with Imperial questions, for what I cannot but 
feel will be a very inadequate contribution to the records 
of their proceedings. I cannot hope to say anything to- 
night which is likely to be new to them ; indeed, I shall 

T 



290 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

not attempt it. My very modest aim is to put before 
them, perhaps in somewhat novel juxtaposition, a number 
of facts and tendencies with which we are all well acquainted, 
but the interaction of which and its consequences are, 
from their very famiharity, liable to be overlooked. 

If I were obliged to give a title to the subject of my 
remarks, which I would prefer not to do, because they 
reaUy will be of much too simple a character to justify 
anything so ambitious as a formal title, I should be inclined 
to call it ' The Two Empires.' I often wish that, when 
speaking of the British Empire — that is to say, of all the 
countries of which His Majesty is sovereign, flus the pro- 
tectorates, we could have two generally recognised appel- 
lations by which to distinguish the two widely different 
and indeed contrasted types of state of which that Empire 
is composed. Contrasted, I mean, from the point of view 
of their political constitution, though the contrast, no 
doubt, as a general rule, has its foundation in racial, or, 
what comes to the same thing, climatic conditions. I am 
thinking of the contrast between the self-governing com- 
munities of European blood, such as the United Kingdom, 
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the communities 
of coloured race, Asiatic, African, West Indian, or Melan- 
esian, which, though often enjoying some measure of 
autonomy, are in the main subject to the Government of 
the United Kingdom. 

The term British Empire of course includes them both, 
and it is necessary that it should include them both, because 
we have no other term for the King's dominions as a whole, 
and it is essential, even in our phraseology, to keep up the 
struggle for their unity. I say we must continue to have 
one name for the whole, and the only available name is 
' Empire,' however much we may feel that as regards one 
of the two great divisions it is a misnomer, and a rather 
mischievous misnomer. But that being the case, it is 
certainly very unlucky that we have no convenient sub- 
titles for the two groups, because in the absence of such 
distinctions it is hardly possible to make any general 



i9o8] THE TWO EMPIRES 291 

statement at all about the British Empire, except that it 
is the British Empire, which is not radically false about 
one half of it. 

Try to lay down any principle of Imperial policy which 
is not mere platitude and verbiage, and you wiU almost 
immediately be struck by the fact that, if it is reaUy applic- 
able to one of the great divisions of the Empire, it is in- 
applicable to the other. Of course, I do not ignore the 
fact that, within each of the two great divisions I have 
referred to, and especially within the second of them — 
what I will, for want of a better term, call the dependent, 
as distinct from the self-governing Empire — there are 
the greatest varieties of condition. But for all that the 
dependent Empire, as a whole, has certain features in 
common which distinguish it very sharply from the self- 
governing Empire. We talk of India and the Colonies, 
but that is not really the essential division. It is only 
the division with which our administrative arrangements 
make us familiar. Essentially India and the Crown 
colonies, greatly as they differ among themselves, are on 
one side of the dividing line, and the self-governing states 
on the other. 

Incidentally, I may observe, though I only do so in 
passing — I do not wish to dwell upon the point — that the 
antiquated phraseology which still groups, shall I say, 
Australia and Labuan together as ' colonies,' and the 
antiquated system which leaves our relations with them 
to be dealt with by one office, are, I think, regrettable. It 
might not make much difference, but it would, as it seems, 
make some difference, and be of some advantage, if our 
language and our administrative arrangements alike 
corresponded a little more closely with the facts. But 
that is by the way. My real point goes somewhat deeper, 
and it is this — I do not know that I express it very well, 
but you will easily grasp my meaning — that in turning 
from questions affecting the self-governing, to those affect- 
ing the dependent Empire, or vice versa, we inevitably 
experience a change of atmosphere, or, to steal a striking 



292 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

metaphor, we are sensible of ' a break of gauge/ which 
materially enhances the difficulty of grasping the problem 
as a whole or correlating our efforts for the development 
and consolidation of a political fabric at once so vast and 
so irregular. 

Of course, what happens in practice is that we just go 
on from day to day, doing the best we can, meeting diffi- 
culties as they arise in a haphazard way, without much 
troubling to think out the situation as a whole, or to form 
any very definite views as to the future. I do not wish 
to depreciate this method. Many of the greatest achieve- 
ments in history have come about in this way. The 
founders of our Empire in particular often built better 
than they knew. We have seen a mere trading settlement, 
almost accidentally, and without doubt undesignedly, 
grow into a great Empire. But for all that it is well, from 
time to time, to try and think things out, to look ahead, 
to realise what our ultimate objects are, if we have any 
ultimate objects. 

Now, speaking broadly, what are the aims of a construc- 
tive Imperial statesmanship, if we think any such thing 
possible or desirable ? Clearly there are, as it seems to 
me, looking at the position very broadly, two main objects, 
very diverse in character — one is to implement the desire 
for union, for practical co-operation, for a common policy 
in pursuit of their common interests, which I believe 
animates the bulk of the people in all the self-governing 
states of the Empire. We want to prevent them drifting 
into the position of wholly separate political entities. 
That is what is generally at the back of people's minds 
when they use such phrases as ' the consolidation of the 
Empire.' This is the idea underlying such an institution 
as the Imperial Conference, though so far the deHberations 
of that body have not brought us sensibly nearer to its 
reahsation. But there is another object, which we talk 
much less about, though to many of us it may seem more 
important or at least more attainable. I mean the reten- 
tion and the development of the dependent Empire, and 



igoS] THE TWO EMPIRES 293 

especially, of course, of India, which is still, and probably 
always will be, far the greatest of our possessions. And 
by development I mean making the most of it in every 
way, not only of its material resources, but of the capacities 
of its people, including their capacity for self-government, 
as far as it can be carried subject to our supreme control 
and sovereignty. To many people, as I have said, this 
seems the greater object of the two. Personally I do 
not go that length. If I had to choose between an effective 
union of the great self-governing states of the Empire 
without the dependent states, and the retention of the 
dependent states accompanied by complete separation 
from the distant communities of our own blood and lan- 
guage, I should choose the former. But, on the other 
hand, I fully recognise that a bird in the hand is worth 
two in the bush. Anything like Imperial federation — 
the effective union of the self-governing states — is not, 
indeed, as some think, a dream, but is certainly at present 
little more than an aspiration, though the sentiment which 
makes it an aspiration possible of attainment is one of 
greatly growing force. But the dependent Empire is a 
great present fact. There is no doubt about its actuality 
or its immense importance. And certainly we should be 
mad if in the pursuit of any more distant and doubtful 
object, however attractive, we neglected the development 
or the defence of those great possessions which are 
absolutely ours to-day. 

Do not let me be supposed to suggest that there is any- 
thing incompatible in the pursuit of both these ends. On 
the contrary, I hope to show how greatly success in the one 
is dependent on success in the other. I am only trying 
to realise the full extent of the problem, and in doing so 
I am confronted by the existence of these two separate 
tasks, both difficult, both vast, and yet very dissimilar 
in their character. We have no option but to face them 
both. And in essaying the double task we have, as it 
seems to me, to avoid two opposite errors — the error of 
forgetting their diverse nature, and thoughtlessly apply- 



294 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

ing principles, which have been proved sound under one 
set of conditions, in quarters where the conditions are 
wholly different ; and, on the other hand, the error of 
thinking that, because the problems are so diverse, they 
are unconnected, and that we can afford to deal with them 
as if they had no connection, and to neglect the many 
ways in which our efforts to solve them may, so to speak, 
be dovetailed and rendered mutually supporting. The 
former error is that of ignorance and inexperience ; the 
latter, on the contrary, to which the expert may be even 
more prone than the ignoramus, is the error of rigidity 
and want of imagination. Let me briefly, very briefly, try 
to explain what I mean in either case. 

Against the error which I have described as that of 
ignorance and inexperience, it is not necessary to warn 
an audience such as this. I am almost ashamed to utter 
in your presence such a platitude as that the idea of extend- 
ing what is described as ' Colonial Self -Government ' to 
India, which seems to have a fascination for some un- 
tutored minds, is a hopeless absurdity. When I say that, 
do not let me be thought to ignore the importance of giving 
native capacity for government all the scope we can, a 
principle of which we see the successful application in some 
of the native states. Next to the urgent economic problem, 
this must always be, I take it, the first solicitude of Anglo- 
Indian statesmanship. But quite clearly constitutional 
development in India cannot possibly be on colonial lines. 
It must be not only much more gradual in time, but wholly 
different in direction. This, I venture to think, is obvious. 
Not equally obvious, perhaps — and, indeed, this is a point 
on which I am prepared for much criticism — is my view, 
that we should lose no opportunity of interesting the other 
self-governing states of the Empire — other, I mean, than 
the United Kingdom itseK — in the dependent Empire. I 
may say frankly what is in my mind about this. In the 
long, long run — and please remember that my whole pur- 
pose to-night is a peep into the somewhat distant future 
■ — I cannot picture the people of these islands alone remain- 



i9o8] THE TWO EMPIRES 295 

ing solely responsible for the dependent Empire, carrying 
the whole of the ' white man's burden,' as far as it falls — 
and it does very largely fall — on the British race. Surely 
it is a terrible piece of waste and a clear proof of the defec- 
tive nature of our present political organisation that 
Englishmen, Scotsmen, or Irishmen going to live in a 
British community over-seas under the British flag should 
by that mere act of locomotion, without any change of 
political status at all, or any desire to make such a change, 
cease to have any part or lot in the affairs of these vast 
dominions, of which while resident here they were among 
the ultimate rulers, should lose aU share in the duties, 
responsibilities, and, I may add, privileges of that great 
position. Logically, the thing is quite indefensible ; prac- 
tically it is bound to be detrimental, and may even ulti- 
mately prove fatal, to the maintenance of the Imperial 
fabric. As a race we cannot afford to give up so much of 
our best blood and stamina, to discharge it, so to speak, 
from all further duty in respect of one at least of the greatest 
of our national tasks. And so it is, in my opinion, essential 
always to keep a firm grip of the guiding principle, that in 
our management of the dependent Empire we, the people 
of the United Kingdom, are only the trustees for the whole 
family of British states. The control and management 
of that dependent Empire, in so far as it has to be external 
control and management — I mean in so far as these countries 
are obliged to rely on something more than native ability 
and authority for their civilisation and development — 
the whole control, as I say, at present rests with the people 
of the United Kingdom. Under existing circumstances 
there are many reasons why it must so rest. For one thing, 
the younger countries have, for the time being, their hands 
quite full with their internal development. For another, 
they have, owing to a narrow outlook and false political 
philosophy — which is not peculiar to them, but which has 
too long affected the whole race — failed to rise to the 
conception of what is involved in citizenship of a world- 
wide state. I say for the present the responsibility for 



296 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

the dependent Empire must rest with us alone. But that 
it always must, ought, or can so rest, I do not for a moment 
admit. And as a wise father trains his sons in time to the 
management of the family property and the discharge of 
the duties which it involves, I hold that we too should look 
ahead, and anticipating the day when we must either have 
the help of the younger nations in maintaining our common 
heritage, or be prepared to see it dwindle, seize every 
opportunity which offers itself of bringing them into closer 
contact with all that is involved in its preservation. 

Now that is a suggestion which I am sure will have terrors 
for many people — not unnaturally. They may say, ' it 
is bad enough to be threatened with the interference of 
British political busybodies in such a delicate business as, 
for instance, the government of India. It would be finally 
hopeless if we had the people of the seK-governing colonies 
poking their noses into it also, especially when they are, 
as we see, from their anti- Asiatic prejudices, so lacking in 
the inteUigence and sympathy requisite for dealing with 
it wisely.' Personally I draw quite a different lesson from 
what we shall all agree to be the most unfortunate conflict 
which has arisen between the people of the self-governing 
states of the Empire and its coloured subject races over 
the question of immigration. To my mind it is not so 
much an illustration of the evil of colonial interference 
with the affairs of the dependent Empire, as it is a proof 
of the danger which we run from the fact that colonial 
acquaintance with, and interest in, that Empire is still 
so limited. If there were more interdependence there 
would be less misunderstanding. As regards this particular 
question of the free immigration of Indian or other coloured 
people, being British subjects, into the self-governing 
states, I think that there are considerable faults on both 
sides. I hold that we in this country are to blame for 
failing to appreciate the many sound and reputable reasons 
(though I do not deny that there are also bad and despic- 
able ones) which make the people of the Colonies so opposed 
to the permanent settlement of alien coloured races, even 



i9o8] THE TWO EMPIRES 297 

if they be British subjects, among them. They are 
threatened with a danger of which we have no experience, 
and they are in my opinion quite right to guard against 
it. No one who has Uved among them will fail to appre- 
ciate the causes of their anxiety on this subject, or lightly 
will condemn them for that anxiety. On the other hand 
they are, no doubt, often to blame for the harsh, unjust, 
and unreasonable form which their anxiety, however just 
and reasonable in itself, often takes. If it were not too 
serious, one would be tempted to smile at the crude ignor- 
ance which makes so many of them confound all men of 
coloured race, from the high-class and cultured Asiatic 
gentleman or noble, to the humblest coolie, in the common 
category of ' niggers.' But I do not know that home 
Britons would be much better if they had not had for 
many years the education which responsibility for the 
dependent Empire gives, and especially if they had not 
so many men living among them who have had lifelong 
experience of the coloured races of the Empire. Our 
colonial fellow-citizens, devoid of all sense of responsi- 
bility in the matter, and without that expert guidance 
which we enjoy, are largely at the mercy of the primitive 
and untutored instinct of aversion from alien races. I have 
often thought, when I was confronted with some outburst 
of anti-Asiatic prejudice in South Africa, what a differ- 
ence it would have made if there had been only a few men 
in the country, themselves South Africans, who had ever 
been members of the Indian Civil Service. For my experi- 
ence is that the coloured races under British rule have no 
sturdier champions than the British officials who have 
lived and worked amongst them. Even in South Africa 
itself I have seen the same influences at work with regard 
to the attitude of the South African whites to their own 
native population, an attitude which, I am glad to think, 
is undergoing a steady change for the better. Among the 
most liberal-minded guides of public opinion are those 
South Africans, who as magistrates in native districts have 
come into the closest touch with the native population. 



298 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june i6, 

If ever we are inclined self -righteously to contrast our own 
comparative liberality and freedom from prejudice in 
regard to coloured races with the crude sentiments of our 
white fellow-citizens in the younger states, let us bear in 
mind the causes which account for the difference. And 
let us draw the moral, that the more we can associate them 
with ourselves in knowledge of and responsibility for the 
dependent Empire, the more we may expect to see their 
attitude towards its coloured races develop in intelligence 
and liberality. 

In any case it is clear that the relations between the self- 
governing and the dependent Empire are bound to become 
closer. On certain points — it is true these are only, so to 
speak, the fringes of our tropical and sub-tropical posses- 
sions — ^the two Empires are already in contact. I need 
only point to the growing interest of Canada in the West 
Indies, or to the still greater interest of Australia and New 
Zealand in the British dependencies in the Pacific. More- 
over there is a great question, which has as yet received but 
little attention, but which is bound to come into promin- 
ence within a few years, the question of the boundary of 
South Africa on the north, and of the political future of 
the great purely native territories beyond the Zambesi. No 
doubt even these questions are as yet only, so to speak, in 
their infancy ; and they are only forerunners of a new 
chapter in Imperial development, fraught with many 
dangers and difficulties, but fraught also with great possi- 
bilities, which will occupy a large space in the history of 
the century that is still young. I can do nothing more 
than indicate them to-night. It would be beyond my 
purpose, and indeed altogether beyond my powers, to lay 
down rules for our guidance in the new maze into which 
we are about to enter. 

But there is one general principle which seems to me to 
result clearly from the imminence of the problems which 
I have sought to adumbrate. It is the urgent need of a 
better organisation of the Empire, which shall enable the 
people of this country and those of the younger states to 
prepare in time to deal with the dependent Empire, as 



igoSl THE TWO EMPIRES 299 

indeed with all their common interests, on the basis of 
partnership. It may be many years before the younger 
states are able or willing to share with us in the burden 
of the dependent Empire as a whole. But there are parts 
of it in which their interest is already great, and there is 
no part of it in which their interest is not increasing. Do 
not let us imagine that it is a matter of complete indiffer- 
ence to them even now. If we look at the influences which 
tend to keep them within the Empire, the strongest no 
doubt is affinity of race, but certainly the next strongest 
— and it is an influence of rapidly increasing importance 
as their relations with the outside world develop and their 
outlook widens — is pride in the vast extent and diversity 
of the British dominions. And observe that, while the tie 
of race is confined after aU only to a portion — the majority, 
no doubt, but still only a portion — of their inhabitants, 
this other attraction, their sense of pride in belonging to 
so great a State, is not confined to those of them who are 
of British race. It is the common privilege of all British 
citizens, and it will be found to be a sentiment of great 
potency if we learn how to appeal to it. 

But we must always bear in mind the saying of the 
Canadian statesman : ' If jou want our help, you must 
call us to your councils.' A real Council of the Empire, be 
it in the first instance only a consultative body, is becoming 
every day a more urgent necessity. It is a necessity, 
because every year brings up fresh questions in which the 
new Dominions, though they have no representation in 
the British Parliament, are as much interested as the 
United Kingdom, and because it is our cue to welcome and 
encourage and not to repress that interest. It is a neces- 
sity, because there is no other means of preserving Imperial 
questions from the corroding influence of British party 
politics, and because with all its crudeness and inexperience 
there is a robustness and a sanity about the colonial atti- 
tude on these questions, which would be a wholesome 
corrective to certain tendencies among ourselves. It is a 
necessity above all because, however numerous and diverse 
the problems of our Empire are — indeed just because they 



300 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 26, 

are so numerous and diverse — we cannot hope to deal 
with them on any coherent plan, unless there is somewhere 
in our system a point from which these problems can at 
least be seen and considered as a whole. The great straggling 
body needs a central brain, and till that want is supplied, 
we shall not have taken even the first step to reshaping 
our political machinery and making it less hopelessly 
inadequate to the new conditions. 

CONSTITUTIONAL CLUB.— June 26, 1908 
Tariff Reform and National Security 

[From a speech at a dinner given by the Constitutional Chib, Mr. Edward 
Goulding, M.P., presiding, and in acknowledging the toast of Lord 
Milner's health proposed by Mr. Bonar Law.] 

There is one thing which ought always to have the highest 
place in the thoughts of those who are responsible for the 
government of the country, and that is the national security. 
No object, however good in itself, ought ever to be pursued 
to the neglect or the detriment of this supreme end. But 
Tariff Reform, so far from being detrimental to a policy 
directed to increasing our national strength, is calculated 
to subserve it, and to do so in many more ways than one. 
In the greatest of all its aspects — I mean in its relation to 
the development of the man power of the whole Empire— -- 
it seems to me essential to the only ultimate solution of 
the problem of Imperial defence. And in the field of 
social reform there are few important movements which 
are not connected at some point with a modification of our 
fiscal system. I am not thinking merely of our need of 
fresh sources of revenue, though that need is becoming daily 
more apparent. 

But take such a question as the repeopling of the country 
districts. 

We are all, I take it, anxious to see more small land- 
holders, and I may say, speaking for myself at any rate, 
landowners. But it is not enough to throw a few acres 
of land at the head of a man, even of a well-qualified man, 
and expect him to live by them. A great deal more is 



i9o8] TARIFF REFORM 301 

required than the provision of land in order to make the 
thing a success. It will require organised co-operation 
between groups of small holders or owners. It will require 
as I believe, a certain measure of protection, it may be 
only of temporary protection, to give the groups of small 
landowners a start. I am not thinking of protection of 
the type of the old high duties upon wheat, but rather of 
moderate duties on those other agricultural products, in 
which small owners are likely in this country to find the 
most profitable scope. Or take again such a question as 
the reform of our Poor Law. We are all agreed in desiring 
to see a better form of provision than the workhouse for 
the aged and deserving poor. But indiscriminate old age 
pensions after seventy, even if that is the best use for so 
many millions of money in the interests of the poor them- 
selves, are not going to solve the problem of the relief of 
poverty in its many aspects, still less to strike at that most 
fertile source of poverty — ^unemployment, or irregular 
employment, and the resulting demoralisation. Other 
concurrent remedies, such as better industrial training, 
and the organisation of labour registries, are, indeed, 
necessary. But we shaU never reduce the evil within a 
tolerable compass as long as we continue to show our 
present gross disregard for the undermining of great 
industries, like the hop-growing industry, and the pouring 
of the people engaged in them into the already over-fiUed 
ranks of casual labour. It is, indeed, the vast mass, and 
the, I fear, increasing mass of that body of casual labour 
which seems to me the gravest of all our social problems. 
It must be attacked, as I have said, in many ways ; but, 
however you attack it, however hard you pump out this 
reservoir of casual labour, you will always have leaks in 
the wall through which it will fiU again, as long as you 
cling blindly to a system which prevents your defending 
your present industries against insidious attack, or start- 
ing new industries, like beet sugar cultivation for instance, 
which need to be shielded at the outset. Orthodox Free 
Traders like Mill used to defend the protection of infant 
industries in new countries. Some of his modern followers, 



302 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 9, 

seeing whither the argument leads, have now abandoned 
it on the ground that you cannot choose or feed your 
infants wisely. I maintain both that you can choose 
them wisely, and that, so chosen, they need to be shielded 
in an old country just as much as in a new one. 

My point is this, that whichever way I turn I find the 
road blocked by our desperate clinging to an antiquated 
theory. And so it is that I come to put Fiscal Reform 
first, though you must not regard me as identifying first 
with highest. Fiscal Reform is, after all, only a means, 
one of the means to greater ends. But on practical grounds 
there is very good reason to put it first ; because it can 
ill afford to wait. It can ill afford to wait because there 
are a number of industries, sound in themselves and suit- 
able to the natural conditions of this country, which are 
being undermined to-day, and which we shall bitterly 
regret when we have lost them. And it can even less 
afford to wait, because, unless it comes soon, it may come 
too late for us to use it, or, at any rate, to use it as 
effectively as we might to-day, in laying the foundations of 
a commercial system which shall constitute a link between 
the different states of the Empire. 



THE CANADIAN CLUB, VANCOUVER.— October 9, 1908 

Imperial Unity — External Advantages 

[This speech, and the six which immediately follow it, were delivered 
during Lord Milner's first visit to Canada in the Autumn of 1908.] 

This is the first time I have had the privilege of addressing 
one of those Canadian Clubs which now, I believe, exist 
in most of the great towns of the Dominion, and which, 
inasmuch as they allow free expression to every form of 
opinion, are calculated to exercise a most important influ- 
ence on the development of the intellectual and social, 
and, using the word in its best sense, the political life of 
Canada. I am very grateful for the opportunity you have 
afforded me, but I hope you will not expect a long or 
momentous oration. I am not by training an orator, but 



igoS] IMPERIAL UNITY 303 

an administrator, and I have come to Canada not to preach 
but to learn. For many years I have heard and read a 
great deal about this country. It is one which looms 
large and ever larger in the thought and interest of all 
those who care about the British Empire. It is destined 
to take a very important place, perhaps in time even the 
first place, in the world-wide group of sister nations which 
we designate by that term. 

Now ever since I have thought about such things at all, 
I have striven to be a devoted citizen of Greater Britain. 
I have spent the best years of my life in its service, and 
now that I am out of official harness I have no higher 
ambition than to be regarded as a man who, though he 
may live almost entirely in the Old Country, does not 
belong to it exclusively, but belongs to the whole Empire ; 
one who, at any rate, is capable of understanding and 
sympathising with the people of what I may call the 
younger nations of the Empire ; who realises their diffi- 
culties, sympathises with their aspirations, and who can 
always be relied upon to take a fair, an intelligent, and 
a helpful view of any questions affecting them in their 
relations to the United Kingdom or to one another. 

Now that you will say is a taU order. I am quite aware 
of it. I know that it is a big ambition to be an all-round 
British citizen, not to say an all-round British statesman. 
I dare say I may make a great mess of it — ^perhaps no man 
living can make a complete success in that field ; but whether 
I succeed or whether I fail, it is an honourable ambition 
and one with which I think you are bound to sympathise. 

At any rate, you will see why it was a matter of supreme 
interest to me to become better acquainted with Canada. 
Though I have long been a student of Canadian affairs, 
though I have many Canadian friends, made in the Old 
Country, and made perhaps more especially in South Africa, 
I have never actually been in Canada till the last three 
weeks. It is just twenty days to-day since I landed at 
Quebec, and I have never felt more than during my present 
journey what an enormous difference it makes, however 
much you may have studied a subject or thought about 



304 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 9, 

it, to be able to see things for yourself. It is true that I 
have only rushed through the Dominion ; I am the last 
man to think that so hasty a visit entitles me to pose as 
an authority on Canadian affairs. Nothing could be more 
intolerable — don't I know it ? — than the globe-trotter 
who dashes through a country in a few days, and then 
thinks he knows all about it, when all he really knows is 
the inside of two or three hotels. I assure you, gentlemen, 
I have suffered from him in my time just as much as any 
of you, and I am not going to imitate him. 

Take British Columbia alone. It would take months 
to go through it, and years to know it. But for all that I 
do know it a great deal better than I did a week ago. And 
this is true of all my experiences in this country. I feel 
I realise with greater vividness than I expected, not only 
the vastness and the immense possibilities of the Dominion, 
but also the differences, I might almost say the contrasts, 
which exist between different parts of it. 

That is, so far, the dominant impression left upon my 
mind. I may be entirely wrong ; you will not be hard 
upon me if I am. First impressions are often wrong, and 
I am merely telling you frankly, as I believe you would 
wish me to speak, how the matter strikes me, not in any 
dogmatic way, but because it is sometimes interesting and 
useful to know how things, with which one is very familiar, 
so familiar perhaps that one has ceased to think about 
them, strike a man who sees them for the first time. 

I have been deeply impressed not only by the extent of 
the country, but by the fact that I seem to have been 
travelling not through one, but through four different 
countries ; and that, although, to my great regret, I have 
not been able to visit, and I fear shall not be able to visit, 
on this occasion, the Maritime Provinces on the far Atlantic. 
And so I realise better than ever how bold was the con- 
ception of those who first grasped the idea of moulding aU 
Canada from Cape Breton to Vancouver Island into one 
great Confederation. They were great political architects, 
who leaped the intervening wilderness, as it then was, 



i9o8] IMPERIAL UNITY 305 

between Ontario and British Columbia. Of course, it 
was only the common flag, it was only the fact that that 
flag had been kept flying in British Columbia here on the 
shores of the Pacific, which made that union possible in 
the first instance. Had you and those who came before 
you not kept that flag flying here, as I believe you always 
will keep it flying, that great transcontinental state, the 
creation of which presented such difiiculties in any case, 
would have been a sheer impossibility. The old Crown 
colony of British Columbia, that outpost of Empire, has 
therefore an importance in world history which is not 
generally recognised. 

But, after aU, the common flag, in this as in other cases, 
was only a great opportunity. It may mean everything 
or it may mean very little, according as the opportunity 
is neglected or developed. In this case, human genius 
and energy made the most of the opportunity, and the 
success was beyond aU human anticipation. The builders 
builded better than they knew. But it is one thing to 
bring several distant and diverse communities into one 
political union ; it is another to inspire them with a common 
soul. Many people doubted when the Confederation was 
flrst formed, whether it was possible for the British com- 
munities of North America, with all their differences of 
race, with all the physical obstacles to their intercourse, 
with all the external attractions drawing them away from 
one another, to develop a common national life. The 
event has proved that this fear was unfounded. 

Immense as has been the development of the material 
resources of the country, and it is only just beginning, there 
is another development, not less important, not less 
momentous, though it has perhaps attracted less attention 
in the world ; I mean the growth of a common devotion to 
their common country among the inhabitants of all parts 
of Canada ; the growth of a Canadian spirit, a Canadian 
patriotism. And that without any loss of individuality 
in the several communities. If men had sought to ignore 
the differences of character and history, if they had sought 

u 



306 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 9, 

to force what are now the provinces of Canada into one 
common mould, Confederation would have been a failure. 
It was only by recognising local life and local independ- 
ence, it was only by combining independence in local 
affairs with an effective union for common affairs, by 
unity in diversity, that this country has been built up. 
Canadian patriotism has not grown at the expense of local 
patriotism, but in addition to it. 

And there is a greater and wider lesson in that. How 
will this growth of Canadian patriotism affect Imperial 
interests ? There are people, perhaps many people, who 
think that Canadian patriotism will tend to draw Canada 
away from the sister nations into an isolated existence, 
isolated though no doubt powerful. I do not, myself, 
share that feeling. May I teU you how I have heard it 
put more than once during my visit to Canada ? People 
have said to me, people whose opinion I feel bound to 
respect, ' Canada is a land inhabited by people of various 
races and of different origin and traditions ; it is possible 
to make them all good Canadians, but it is not possible 
to make them aU good Britishers ' : and, in a sense, no 
doubt, that is true ; but I for my part shall be satisfied if 
they all become good Canadians. I do not, myself, fear 
that the growth of a distinct Canadian type of character, 
of a strong Canadian patriotism, is going to be a danger 
to the unity of the Empire. 

My faith in the British Empire, which is something 
different from an Empire of England, or even of the United 
Kingdom, is stronger than that. It is not reasonable to 
expect that men who are not of British race, or who, though 
originally of British race, may have become alienated from 
British traditions, should be Imperialists from love of 
Great Britain. But I think the time will come when they 
may be Imperialists from love of Canada. Let them only 
learn to love Canada, the country of their adoption, or in 
the next generation the country of their birth, let them care 
greatly for Canada, and let them and those Canadians who 
are of British birth unite in the development of a strong 



igo8] IMPERIAL UNITY 307 

local patriotism. The more they all care for Canada, the 
more ambitious they are for her, the more proud they are 
of her, the more I believe they will appreciate the position 
of world-wide influence and power which is open to her 
as a member of the British Empire. 

I am not speaking of what exists to-day. I am think- 
ing of the future. How are these things going to work 
out ? Canada is going to be a great country in any case, 
one of the great countries of the world. But she will not 
be unique in that. There are some other countries her 
equals in extent, and which, even with her vast develop- 
ment, will be far more than her equals in population. The 
time will come when with the growth of her population and 
trade she will have interests in every part of the world. 
How is she going to defend them ? Sooner or later she will 
have to enter the field of world-politics. What will she 
find there ? Nations, not a few now, and there are going 
to be more, who count their armed men by millions, and 
their giant battleships by scores. Is she going to compete 
on that scale with the armaments of the great world-Powers ? 
Or is she going back to take a seat, and a back seat, mind 
you, not only in war but in peace ? Wars between great 
nations are going to be rarer and rarer as time passes. But 
every year and every day, not only on the rare occasions 
when nations actually fight, the power of fighting exercises 
its silent, decisive influence on the history of the world. 
It is like the cash reserve of some great solvent bank. 
How often is it necessary actually to disburse those millions, 
the existence of which, in the background, nevertheless 
affects the bank and everybody who deals with it all the 
time ? It is credit which determines the power and influ- 
ence of nations just as it does the fate of any business. 
Credit in business rests ultimately on the possession or 
command of cash, though the owners may never actually 
have to produce it. And so the influence and authority 
of a nation, its power to defend its rightful interests, depend 
ultimately on that fighting strength in war, which it never- 
theless may never be called upon to use. See what is 



308 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 9, 

happening in Europe to-day. International boundaries 
are being altered. Solemn treaties are being torn up. 
Yet not a shot has been fired, probably not a shot will be. 
The strong will prevail and the weak will go to the wall 
without any such necessity. 

Is Canada, as she grows and her external relations 
increase, going to aUow herself, I will not say to be invaded, 
but just to be hustled and pushed off the pavement, when- 
ever it suits any stronger power ? 

Or is she going to rely for protection on some friendly 
neighbour such as the United States ? I do not think 
that either course would be consonant with the dignity 
or self-respect of Canadians. But are they, then, to be 
compelled to compete in armaments with the great world- 
Powers, to turn aside from the development of this great 
country, which demands all the energies and resources of 
a far larger population than it has, in order to build up 
great armies and navies ? Not at all. There is another 
alternative, easier, much easier, much more natural and 
much more effective. I have said that Canada is not 
unique in being a great country. But she is unique in 
being one of a group of countries, which has a strong foot- 
hold in every corner of the world. That group only needs 
to hold together and to be properly organised, in order to 
command, with a comparatively small cost to its individual 
members, all the credit and all the respect, and, therefore, 
all the power and all the security, which credit and respect 
alone can give a nation among the nations of the world. 
No doubt Canada, if she is to take her place in such a union, 
will have to develop, as I believe she will desire to develop, 
her own fighting strength. But not to a greater extent 
than would be necessary in any case for the adequate 
development of Canadian self-respect, or beneficial to the 
manhood of her people, and certainly nothing like to the 
same extent as would be absolutely inevitable if she desired 
to stand alone. Without any loss of individuality, without 
any excessive strain upon her resources, it is within her 
power to enjoy all the glory and all the benefits of that 



iQoS] IMPERIAL UNITY 309 

great position, not only on this continent, but throughout 
the world, in which every self-governing community under 
the British Crown is equally entitled to participate. 
Canada would be greater, far greater, as a member, perhaps 
in time the leading member, of that group of powerful 
though pacific nations, than she ever could be in isolation. 

One word in conclusion, to obviate any misunderstand- 
ing. If I contemplate a future in which Canada will con- 
tribute more than she does to-day to the maintenance of 
Imperial power, do not suppose that I underestimate what 
Canadians have already done, or what they are even now 
doing for the common cause. I ought to be the last to 
forget, and I never shall forget what Canadians did at a 
supreme crisis in the history of the Empire in South Africa ; 
and I fully realise that the mere development of a great 
country like this within the Empire must of itself tend con- 
stantly to enhance the prestige and potential strength of 
the Empire as a whole. The last thing that would occur 
to me would be to lecture Canadians on their duty. It is 
in no such spirit that I have ventured to point out that the 
greatness of the Empire to which they belong is a matter 
of deep concern to Canadians as Canadians, whether they 
be of British origin or not, and that there is no contrast, 
but rather a necessary connection, between Canadian and 
Imperial patriotism. Let that once be recognised, and I 
have no doubt whatever that the people of Canada will 
draw for themselves the inferences which their interest 
and their dignity alike dictate. They will claim, and 
rightly claim, to have a greater voice in controlling the 
policy of the whole Empire. In my opinion that will be 
an unmitigated advantage all round. I could quote 
instances, but it would take me too long, in which, as I 
think. Imperial policy would never have gone astray, if 
the opinion of the younger nations could have been brought 
to bear upon it. It is high time that those who guide the 
destiny of the Empire should learn to look at international 
problems, not only from the point of view of the United 
Kingdom and its immediate dependencies, but from that 



310 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

of the Empire at large. The younger nations will wish 
to make their voices heard, and the sooner they do it the 
better. And in proportion as they claim an influence on 
Imperial policy they wiU recognise of themselves the 
necessity of increasing Imperial strength. 

I thank you for the kindness and patience with which 
you have listened to me. I hope I have not trespassed too 
much upon your time. The questions I have discussed 
are questions about which there must be great differences 
of opinion here, as in any other portion of the Empire. I 
have stated my own position, and have stated it frankly, 
and I now leave these two matters with you for your own 
consideration : first, the necessity of national strength 
not only for purposes of war, but for purposes of peace 
and peaceful development ; and, second, the evidence 
which your own history affords, that there is no incom- 
patibility between local and national patriotism, as there 
is, in my opinion, no incompatibility between Canadian 
national patriotism and the wider patriotism of the Empire. 



THE CANADIAN CLUB, WINNIPEG.— October 15, 1908 

Imperial Unity — Internal Benefits 

Speaking last week to the Canadian Club of Vancouver, 
I dwelt at some length upon what I conceive to be the 
advantages which Canada and other members of the 
British Imperial family, such as Australia, New Zealand, 
or, for that matter, the United Kingdom itself, derive 
to-day, and may derive in still larger measure in the future, 
from facing the world as a single great power. If any one 
is sufficiently interested in the matter, and cares to see 
what I said then, there is a full report of my remarks, not 
indeed a faultless one, but a wonderfully good one, in the 
Vancouver Daily News-Advertiser of 10th October. I do 
not wish to repeat myself, and I shall deal with quite a 
different aspect of the life of the Empire to-day. But 
there are just one or two things which I must repeat, though 



i9o8] IMPERIAL UNITY 311 

I shall do so as briefly as I can, in order to explain to you 
from what point of view I approach the subject. 

The word British, as applied to the Empire, does not 
mean Enghsh, nor yet English, Scotch and Irish all together. 
The Empire is not something belonging to the United 
Kingdom any more than to Canada, or to Australia, or to 
any other single portion of it. All the subjects of the 
King ought to be equal sharers in it, and so to regard them- 
selves. For my own part, I firmly refuse, and shall always 
refuse, to regard any quarter of the Empire as otherwise 
than a part of my country, or its inhabitants otherwise 
than as my fellow-citizens, my fellow-countrymen, and 
that not because I happen to be an Englishman. If I 
were a Canadian, I should feel, and be entitled to feel, 
precisely the same. No doubt since the Empire has 
tumbled up in a very casual manner, and its organisation 
is still very imperfect, this view is to-day somewhat a 
' counsel of perfection.' The people of the United Kingdom 
do in fact at the present time control the foreign policy of 
the Empire, and provide for its defence, in a very different 
measure from the inhabitants of other parts of it. But 
that is a state of affairs which I hope to see gradually 
altered, as it has been to some extent altered already. A 
good deal has been said recently about the self-governing 
states of the Empire, other than the United Kingdom, 
taking a greater share in Imperial defence. I think that 
is right, and I believe that they recognise it. But from 
my point of view it is no less essential that they should 
take their part in moulding Imperial policy. For instance, 
and by way of illustration only, they all contributed to 
our success in the South African war. It was right that 
they should do so, for the great issue at stake there was 
not of local but of general interest. But though they 
took part in the war, their participation in South African 
affairs ended with its conclusion. It was regarded as a 
matter of course that the United Kingdom alone should 
deal with the situation in South Africa as the war left it. 
In my opinion, the policy to be adopted after the war 



312 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

should have been, like the war itself, the business of the 
whole Empire, and not of the United Kingdom only. If 
Canada, Australia, New Zealand had had a voice in it, if 
the organisation of the Empire had been sufficiently 
advanced to make that course practicable, I think we 
should see a more satisfactory state of affairs in South 
Africa than we do to-day. 

That, then, is my position, the position of an Imperial 
Unionist, using that word in its broadest and in no party 
sense — a Unionist in that I wish to see all our common 
affairs the subject of common management in peace as 
much as in war. If wars were altogether to cease, as we 
all hope and believe that they will grow less and less frequent, 
I should not on that account attach less importance to a 
united Empire. 

And now only one more reference to what I said at 
Vancouver. In answer to those who hold that the growth 
of a Canadian spirit, of Canadian patriotism, in which I 
rejoice, is incompatible with the Imperial idea, I tried to 
point out how decisively the history of this country itself 
belies such fears. There are no greater contrasts within 
the British Empire to-day, or at any rate within the self- 
governing states, than existed in Canada before Confedera- 
tion, and indeed still exist. You had physical distance 
and inaccessibility. Nova Scotia is farther from British 
Columbia than from Great Britain, and the then unbridged 
prairies and Rocky Mountains were out and away a greater 
obstacle to intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean. You 
had likewise differences of race. But in spite of all these, 
United Canada is a great accomplished fact to-day. And 
it has become so without loss of individuality in the several 
and very diverse states which compose it, and without 
violence being done to their distinctive character and tradi- 
tions. The principles which have been so satisfactory in 
the making of Canada are applicable in a wider field. 

And Canada is not the only example. The history of 
our race and of other kindred races for hundreds of years 
shows many instances in which, never, indeed, without 



i9o8] IMPERIAL UNITY 313 

doubt, opposition, and criticism at the outset, but with 
complete success in the end, independent communities, 
intensely jealous of their independence, have nevertheless 
solved the problem of effective and enduring union for 
common purposes, without injury to their individual 
characters and patriotism. There is nothing at all new 
in the idea. What is novel is the largeness of the scale 
on which it is sought to realise it. But then the novel 
conditions of human life, the great and progressive improve- 
ment in the means of travel and communication, the 
triumphs of science over distance — what has been called 
the ' shrinkage of the world ' — are favourable to political 
architecture on a large scale. Imperialists are only men 
who realise the facts of the world they live in, who have 
grasped the bearing and consequences of the changes, to 
which I have referred, rather sooner than other people. 

And now, gentlemen, I have done with my recapitulation. 
I am going to break new ground. Enough has been said, 
for the moment, about the value of Imperial unity for 
purposes of external protection. Let us look at it to-day 
in its bearing on internal development. We Imperialists 
are frequently represented as people who think only of 
national power, of armies, and navies, and of cutting a big 
figure in the world ; in fact, in one word, of the material and 
external aspect of national life. Most emphatically do I enter 
my protest against any such misconception. Give me that 
political organism, be it small or large, which affords to 
its members the best opportunities of self-development, 
of a healthy and many-sided human existence. I believe 
that the close association of the several peoples under the 
British Crown, their leading a common national life, tends 
to promote these things, and that there would be a distinct 
and immense loss, if the tie were broken, alike to the 
various communities as wholes and to all the individuals 
who compose them. 

Take first the individual. We live in a migratory age, 
and mankind, as far as one can foresee, is likely to become 
more rather than less migratory. Men find the older 



314 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

countries too crowded, and go forth to seek fresh oppor- 
tunities and more elbow-room in the new, or they go for 
purposes of business and study, or from mere inclination, 
from the new to the old. Again there is a growing inter- 
course, this for business reasons mainly, between the 
tropic and the temperate zones, and generally between 
countries of diverse cUmate and products. The economic 
interdependence of the different parts of the world is con- 
stantly increasing this tendency. 

Now, in this constant movement, so characteristic of 
our age, the citizens of a world-wide state have a great 
advantage. The British Empire, comprising, as it does, 
so large an area in both hemispheres, and in every continent 
on the globe, containing every variety of climate and pro- 
duct, and almost every form of human activity and enter- 
prise, offers to every born subject of the king, of European 
race, a varied choice of domicile within its own borders, 
and opportunities of migration without expatriation, 
which no other state in the world affords. The United 
States probably come nearest to it in this respect, but the 
United States are not its equal in the number and variety 
of the opportunities which they offer to their citizens within 
the confines of their own country. 

It is no exaggeration to say that, without exception, 
British citizenship is the most valuable citizenship in the 
whole world. Regarded as a free pass, it has the widest 
currency. The man of white race who is born a British 
subject can find a home in every portion of the world where 
he can live under his own flag, enjoying the same absolute 
freedom, and the same protection for person or property 
as he has always enjoyed ; using his own language, and 
possessing, from the first moment that he sets foot there, 
the full rights of citizenship. And that without sacrificing 
anything, without forswearing his allegiance to the land 
of his birth, as he must do in order to obtain citizen rights 
in any foreign country. 

It is needless to dwell on the vast advantage which it 
is to the people of the United Kingdom to be able to make 



i908] IMPERIAL UNITY 315 

homes for themselves in so many parts of the new world, 
without ceasing to be Britons. There is nothing which 
more excites the envy and admiration of foreign nations. 
But is there no corresponding advantage to the younger 
nations of the British family in the fact that they have a 
home, and a footing, and a place as of right, in the old 
world, which no other denizens of the new world possess ? 
Take the people of the great republic on your borders. 
They come to Europe as visitors by tens and hundreds of 
thousands, and many of them come to stay. And welcome 
visitors they are, especially in Great Britain. The sense of 
relationship is strong and growing, and we are all very glad 
of it. But much as he may feel at home in Great Britain, 
much as we may do to make him feel so, the citizen of 
the United States can never be at home there, in the same 
sense in which a Canadian or AustraHan can. The great 
historic sites to which he makes his pilgrimage, the monu- 
ments of art and antiquity, the accumulated treasures of 
centuries of civilised existence, great as may be the attrac- 
tion they possess for him, are yet not his, as they are yours 
and mine. And, of course, he cannot take his part in the 
public life of the country without abandoning his own 
nationality. The Canadian can do so at any time and for 
just as long as he likes without any such sacrifice. 

These privileges of British citizenship are without 
parallel in history. I cannot dwell at greater length upon 
all that is involved in them, either in the way of material 
benefit, or in their effect on character, though I feel strongly 
that the multiplied sympathies and the wider outlook 
which the citizenship of a world-state gives, have an educat- 
ing influence of the highest value. And, here, if I may, 
without appearing to be egotistical, refer to my own case, 
I should just say that I am conscious how greatly my own 
life has been enriched by my experiences in Egypt and 
South Africa, arduous and even painful as they sometimes 
have been. I am not now thinking of the political or 
business aspect of these experiences, but simply of the 
education, which it was to me, to be brought into close 



316 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

touch with the life of these two countries, so extraordin- 
arily dissimilar and yet both so interesting. That was 
an experience which I could never have had in the same 
degree as a mere foreign visitor. And I feel the same 
about my present sojourn in Canada. It is much too 
short, but I am getting more out of it, in the way of my 
own improvement, than I should out of a stay of equally 
brief duration in any foreign country. 

Now turn from the individual to look at the community. 
Despite a general similarity of spirit and aim, which dis- 
tinguishes the self-governing states of the Empire through- 
out the world from other nations, there is no doubt great 
diversity between them. They are developing distinct 
but closely related types of civilisation and character, 
and, that being so, they have much to learn from one another 
which can best be learned and perhaps can only be learned 
if they draw closer together instead of drifting into separa- 
tion, and that inevitable consequence of separation, potential 
antagonism. This is a big subject, much more than I can 
elaborate at the end of a long address. But I may just 
indicate what is running in my mind. My personal experi- 
ence of the younger communities of the Empire is limited. 
But as far as it goes, it confirms what has often been 
asserted by careful observers. In the freer and less con- 
ventional life of these communities men are more readily 
judged by their essential worth than they are in the Old 
Country. Social distinctions are of less account. * A 
man 's a man for a' that.' In this respect the younger 
states are in the best sense of the word more democratic. 
Again, the supreme importance of education is more 
generally recognised. It is impressive to see the new 
provinces of the Canadian West, which have only existed 
as political entities for a few years, equipped with such 
stately school buildings, already starting Universities, and 
resolved to start them on no mean scale. Again, it is 
a commonplace that new departures in social organisa- 
tion are more readily attempted here or in Australia or 
New Zealand than in the United Kingdom. There is not 



igoS] IMPERIAL UNITY 317 

the same excessive caution about making experiments, 
or the same difficulty in breaking loose from the domina- 
tion of time-honoured theories and routine. For one who, 
like myself, is something of a radical, at any rate in the 
field of economics and social reform, there is much encourage- 
ment in all this, as weU as much instruction. 

But if there is much that the Old Country can learn 
from Canada, is there not also much that she can give to 
Canada in return ? I speak from a brief experience, and 
I may be quite wrong, but you will wish me to say frankly 
what strikes me. The younger states of the Empire have 
taken all their fundamental institutions from the Old 
Country. I am not sure that they have yet reproduced 
all that is best in her public life. Without ignoring the 
excesses of party spirit in the United Kingdom, which I 
am the last to defend, I think that as a rule the tone 
of public controversy there is comparatively high. The 
number of men who engage in public affairs, contrary to 
their own interests and even inclinations, from a sheer 
sense of duty, is considerable. The civil service, impar- 
tially recruited, entirely free from party bias, absolutely 
independent and yet self-effacing, is probably the best 
in the world. 

Now turn from the political to the intellectual life of 
the country. I think the general level of education and 
intelligence is higher on this continent. But I also think 
that on the topmost plane of literature and learning, of 
course with individual exceptions, there is something in 
the maturity of thought and perfection of scholarship 
which distinguish the Old Country and the Old World 
generally, which seems entitled to peculiar respect. But 
I will say no more on these points. On the whole, it would 
be better for Canadians to look out for what is best and 
most worthy of imitation in the Old Country, and for me 
to spend my time in Canada in looking out for what is best 
and most worthy of imitation here. That would appear 
to be the right division of labour in the present case. 

And now, before sitting down, I want to answer two 



318 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 15, 

criticisms, not external but internal criticisms. I mean 
doubts which have arisen in my mind as to the appro- 
priateness of what I have been saying to-day. The first 
is this : for the past fortnight, during which I have travelled 
thousands of miles and conversed earnestly with scores 
of able people, I have been ceaselessly in contact with, 
hearing all day and dreaming all night, and imbibing, so 
to speak, through the pores of the skin, the story of that 
immense development, present and future, of Western 
Canada, which necessarily preoccupies the minds of all 
its inhabitants to-day. The only thing which everybody 
cares for, so says my internal critic, is the one thing I have 
said nothing at all about. But not because I am not 
impressed with it, or fail to realise its importance alike 
to this country and to the future of the Empire. If the 
plains, which I have just been traversing, are going to 
become the principal granary of the United Kingdom, 
and I don't see how they can fail to become that, this is 
evidently a new factor of tremendous moment. But then 
it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to dilate upon it 
here. There is not a man in this room who does not know 
much more about it than I do. If I am going to dwell on 
the great future of the Canadian West and all that it 
involves, let me do so, not in Winnipeg, but in London. 

But now that I have silenced one internal critic, up 
jumps another and a more formidable one. ' What,' he 
says to me, ' have we not heard enough of all these fine 
generalities about Empire and Imperial Union ? Is it not 
time to come to something more definite and practical ? ' 
Now that objection appeals to me very much, for, absurd 
as it may seem to say so at the end of this interminable 
rigmarole, I am not a man of speech, but a man of action. 
No amount of practice will ever make speaking anything 
but pain and grief to me, and especially speaking in gener- 
alities. It is very much easier to discuss a particular 
definite proposal. But then, in the first place, this is a 
club for the formation of opinion and not for the discus- 
sion of programmes. And I must reluctantly admit that 



igoS] IMPERIAL UNITY 319 

there is still a great deal to do, quite as much, or more, in 
the Old Country as here, in creating a sound attitude of 
mind on Imperial Unity. It is not that in a vague and 
after-dinner-speech sort of way there is not great enthusiasm 
with regard to it. But of the people who share that enthu- 
siasm, very few take the trouble to think out what they 
themselves can do to turn it to a practical account. Men 
are waiting for a sign, for some great scheme of an Imperial 
constitution, which, as it seems to me, can only result 
from, and not precede, the practice of co-operation in the 
numerous matters in which it might be practised now 
without new institutions. And so opportunities are 
missed every day, which would not be missed, if there 
was a more general and vivid sense of what is incumbent 
on those who sincerely aim at being citizens of Greater 
Britain. 

I have tried in my imperfect way to live up to that ideal 
all my life, and have found it a constant source of strength 
and inspiration. I do not think I have been a worse 
Englishman because I have never been a Little Englander, 
but have sought to realise, beyond my duty to England, 
the duties and obligations of a wider patriotism. May I 
put it to you, quite bluntly, it is only if a similar spirit 
prevails in all parts of the Empire, that the great heritage 
of our common citizenship and our world-wide dominion 
can either be preserved, or so developed as to yield all 
the benefits which it is capable of yielding to every one of 
its inheritors. It is no use a few of us, even a large 
number of us, working away for the common cause on the 
other side of the Atlantic, unless others are working for it 
over here, working for it as Canadians, keeping it in their 
minds from day to day, watching for every opportunity 
which may further it, on their guard against every step 
which may imperil it. It is only by a long pull and a 
strong puU and a pull altogether, that we can place our 
great common heritage, the British Empire, above the 
danger of external attack or internal disruption. 



320 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 27, 

THE CANADIAN CLUB, TORONTO.— October 27, 1908 
Practical Suggestions 

It is perhaps rather unfortunate that the subject of my 
address to-night should be a poUtical subject. Even the 
most ardent lovers of political discussion must, I fancy, 
be feeling some satiety on the day after the close of a hotly 
contested general election. But if my subject is political, 
it is at any rate not party-political. It has nothing to do 
with any of the questions which at present form the staple 
of party controversy in this country. My views may excite, 
indeed they are bound to excite, differences of opinion, 
but they will not follow the ordinary lines of party cleavage. 
Only one more preliminary remark. I have not come 
to Canada as a lecturer or a propagandist. The object of 
my journey is simply to make myself better acquainted 
with Canada, with the conditions of its life and the opinions 
of its people. And from that point of view my visit has 
been an unmitigated success. It is difficult for me to tell 
you how much instruction I have derived from it. Whether 
it would not have been better to allow me thus to improve 
my mind, without at the same time compelling me to exhibit 
its emptiness by making speeches, is another question. What- 
ever may be the advantages, and the charms, of the role 
of a silent observer, it is one which the vigilance and the 
enterprise of the Canadian Clubs have rendered impossible 
in my case. They are scattered all over the land, and, 
like the robber barons, whose castles lined the great mediaeval 
trade-routes, they insist on taking their toll of the passing 
traveller. True, I have succeeded in evading several of 
them. But where evasion is clearly hopeless, I do my 
best to pay up cheerfully, and to look as if I liked it. But 
I beg you to observe that this payment is not in the nature 
of a voluntary contribution. I am not volunteering my 
opinions. I am told to ' stand and deliver ' them. That 
being the case, I am bound to deliver them frankly. No 
other course would be compatible with self-respect or 



i9o8] PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 321 

respect for you. But if, being pronounced opinions, they 
knock up against the pet prejudices of some, or disturb 
the contented inertia of others, I shall decline to be respon- 
sible for the ' moral and intellectual damages ' so occasioned. 

And now, not to detain you too long, may I take one 
or two things for granted ? In the first place, it may seem 
very conceited of me, but I wiU take it for granted that 
my audience to-night are acquainted, in a general way, 
with the spirit in which I approach the question of the 
relations of Canada with the Mother Country, and with 
the other parts of the British Empire. And I will take 
it for granted further — this is perhaps a bolder assump- 
tion, but I am prepared to make it — that, broadly speaking, 
this spirit is in harmony with the spirit and temper of the 
great majority of those in Canada who think much or 
earnestly about this question. I may be quite wrong, but 
that is my present impression. I think there is a wide- 
spread, a preponderant, I do not say a universal, desire 
among the people of this country, not only to maintain 
the union which at present happily exists between Canada 
and the other self-governing states under the British 
Crown, but to see that union grow closer, to foster more 
intimate commercial and social intercourse, a better 
mutual understanding, and greater mutual helpfulness. 
Underlying that desire is the conception, not clearly 
grasped perhaps, but constantly becoming stronger and 
more definite, the conception of the Empire as an organic 
whole, consisting, no doubt, of nations completely inde- 
pendent in their local affairs, and possessing distinct 
individualities, but having certain great objects and ideals 
in common, and capable, by virtue of these, of developing 
a common policy and a common life. 

Well now, that being a general desire, the question 
arises how to realise it. And here opinions diverge widely. 
My own view is that, if people already friendly and related 
wish to become more friendly and more closely related, 
to develop greater intimacy and interdependence, the only 
way for them to achieve this is to do things together ; 

X 



322 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 27. 

great things, if possible, in any case things that are of some 
moment, and are worth doing. To do this, that, and the 
other important piece of business together, not to stand 
talking of your mutual affection and sympathy — ^that is 
the method, as it seems to me. And there are many oppor- 
tunities for co-operation between the members of the 
Imperial family, some that have been taken, many_ more 
that have been and are being missed. It is quite a mistake 
to suppose that nothing can be done. An enormous 
amount can be done even with our present instruments. 
And if the instruments are imperfect, it is in using them 
that we shall invent better ones. Some people think that 
no progress can be made without the creation, as a first 
step, of some Imperial parliament or council representative 
of all parts of the Empire. I do not agree with them. 
But do not misunderstand me. I am and always have 
been a Federalist. Personally, I am unable to conceive 
the effective permanent all-round co-operation of the self- 
governing states of the Empire without a common organ, 
an executive belonging to all of them, in the constitution 
of which they will all have a share, which will be respon- 
sible for the defence of their common interests, and armed 
with power to defend them effectually. And for my own 
part I do not think the difficulties besetting the creation 
of such a body are anything like as great as they appear 
to many people. 

But, in my view, this is the natural end of a particular 
process of constitutional development. It is not the 
beginning of it. It may come more or less quickly. Or 
the true solution may be found in some other form of 
organisation, which, on the basis of our present knowledge 
and experience, I personally am unable to conceive. What 
is certain is that we can only arrive at an ideal system of 
co-operation by actually beginning to co-operate in the 
problems immediately before us. 

Do not let us aUow differences of opinion as to the future 
constitution of the Empire — I do not deprecate the dis- 
cussion of such matters ; in fact, I welcome it, only I 



i9o8] PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 323 

don't want it entirely to absorb us — I say, do not let 
such differences prevent our working together to-day, 
wherever we can work together, for purposes which we 
all, or the great majority of us, consider desirable. 
To sum up, while we keep the ideal in view, let us 
pay immediate attention to the one practical thing 
after another that arises and that can be dealt with here 
and now. 

Now, there is one respect in which I think most people 
are agreed, that a great deal can be done to draw together 
the different parts of the Empire, and that is the develop- 
ment of trade relations between them. But this is a 
subject on which, great as its importance is, I will 
not dwell to-night. I shall have other opportunities of 
discussing it. Another great branch of the subject is 
co-operation for defence. In approaching that I wish to 
remove one common source of misunderstanding. The 
way in which the case is sometimes put is an appeal, or 
something like an appeal, on the part of the United 
Kingdom, to Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand, to 
lighten the vast burden resting on the Mother Country. 
Personally, I am not in accord with that manner of approach- 
ing the question, for many reasons. I think there is some- 
thing in the argument that the United Kingdom, certainly 
as long as it retained Indian and other dependencies, would 
require at least as large an Army and Navy as it has to-day, 
even if the self-governing states were wholly separate, and 
the United Kingdom was under no obligation to protect 
them. Moreover I think that, even under present condi- 
tions, their membership of the Empire adds more to its 
collective strength than liability for their protection adds 
to its responsibilities. But no doubt the general posi- 
tion would be much stronger if all the self-governing states 
were to adopt the course which Australia seems disposed 
to adopt, of creating a national militia and laying the 
foundations of a fleet. And I for one should welcome such 
a policy, wherever adopted, not as affording relief to the 
United Kingdom, but as adding to the strength and dignity 



324 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 27, 

of the Empire as a whole, to its influence in peace as well 
as to its security in case of war. 

It is not a question of shifting burdens, but of develop- 
ing fresh centres of strength. For this reason I have never 
been a great advocate of contributions from the self- 
governing states to the Army and Navy of the United 
Kingdom, though as evidences of a sense of the solidarity 
of the Empire such contributions are welcome and valuable, 
pending the substitution of something better. But I am 
sure that the form which Imperial co-operation in this field 
will ultimately take, and ought to take, the form at once 
most consistent with the dignity of the individual states, 
and most conducive to their collective strength and organic 
union, is the development of their several defensive resources, 
in material and in manhood. I know that it may be 
argued — it has been argued — that individual strength 
would make for separation. But I have no sympathy 
whatever with that point of view On the contrary, I 
believe that in proportion as the self-governing dominions 
grow in power, they will feel a stronger desire to share in 
the responsibilities and the glory of Empire. 

But quite apart from any danger to the Imperial spirit 
in the several states, which I do not fear, there are no 
doubt many difficulties about the creation of separate 
defensive forces, and there is a danger of their developing 
on lines so dissimilar as to hamper conjoint action should 
it become necessary This is especially true in the case of 
the Navy. The professional and technical, not to say the 
strategic, arguments for a single big navy of the Empire 
are enormously strong, so strong that they might conceiv- 
ably overcome, as they have to some extent overcome in 
the past, the political objection. But without wishing to 
be dogmatic on a subject which requires a great deal more 
careful study on all hands than it has yet received, I 
must say that, speaking as an Imperialist, I feel the 
political objection very strongly. 

If the self-governing states were going, under our present 
constitutional arrangements, merely to contribute to a 



i9o8] PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 325 

central navy, whether in money or, better still, in men and 
ships, I do not think they would take that interest and 
pride in the matter which it is essential they should take. 
They would continue, as now, absorbed in their local affairs, 
and, even if they felt their obhgation to the Empire as a 
whole, they would rest content to have discharged it by 
such a contribution. The contribution, under these circum- 
stances, would probably not be large, but that is not really 
the weakest point in such a system. Its fatal wealoiess 
is that the participation of the self-governing states in 
Imperial affairs would begin and end with the contribu- 
tion. The responsibility for the whole direction of Imperial 
affairs, for policy, would still rest with the United Kingdom 
alone. That might save trouble for the moment, but it 
would be a very poor substitute for a real Imperial partner- 
ship. I know the latter cannot be achieved all at once, 
but I want to proceed on lines which lead towards it, and 
which do not lead away from it. The true line of progress 
is for the younger nations to be brought face to face them- 
selves, however gradually and however piecemeal, with 
the problem of the defence of the Empire, to undertake a 
bit of it, so to speak, for themselves, always provided that 
whatever they do, be it much or little, is done for the 
Empire as a whole, not for themselves only, and is part of 
a general system. 

I may illustrate my idea by the analogy of a firm in 
which different partners, with shares perhaps of very 
different amounts, take charge in different centres, but 
always of the interests of the firm, not merely of their 
individual interests. I can see in my mind an arrange- 
ment, in the first instance, possibly, a number of separate 
and special arrangements, by which the self-governing 
states would supplement, with their own forces, acting 
under their own control, but on a mutually agreed plan, 
the efforts already immense, but not even thus quite 
adequate, which the United Kingdom makes to cause the 
influence of the Empire to be felt in every portion of the 
world. You knov/ what the presence of a British ship 



326 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 27, 

of war means in sluj waters. For once that they have to 
fire a shot, our sailors render a hundred invaluable and 
little-recognised services to the Empire, and to civilisa- 
tion, in time of peace. But they cannot be in all places 
where their presence is desirable. Without firing a shot 
a gunboat in the Southern Pacific may prevent the recrudes- 
cence of slavery, or in the North Pacific act as a salutary 
warning to poachers. Imperial interests would be as well 
served, in either case, by an Australian or a Canadian as 
by an English gunboat. 

I hope I have said enough — time will not allow me to 
say more — about the spirit in which, the object with which, 
I desire to see the self-governing states develop for them- 
selves that fighting strength which has once already, at 
a moment of great emergency, contributed so greatly to 
the safety of the Empire. Let me say one word as to 
method. It is of the highest importance, not only for 
strategical reasons, but as a contribution to Imperial 
unity, that these forces, without being forced into one 
rigid mould, should yet be trained, armed, officered on 
similar lines, so that, in the details of military and naval 
organisation as in policy, these separate efforts may dove- 
tail into one another. From this point of view I think 
Mr. Haldane's idea of a general staff of the Empire is an 
idea of great value. The soldiers and sailors of different 
parts of the Empire will be under the control of their 
several governments, and those governments must arrange 
for the manner and degree of their co-operation. But they 
wiU all be the servants of the one Empire and of its common 
sovereign, and they cannot know too much of one another. 

We need not wait, indeed we ought not to wait, for a 
war to make them better acquainted. The same object 
can be attained by a systematic interchange of services 
in time of peace. It would be of immense value for any 
British officer to serve for a time in a Canadian or Australian 
force. It would be of no less advantage to the Canadian 
or Australian to put in a period of service in another 
part of the Empire than his own. At a further stage of 



i9o8] PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 327 

the development, the principle of interchange might be 
extended from individuals to whole regiments and to 
ships. 

And this idea of interchange of service can be and ought 
to be applied in many other directions than that of Imperial 
defence. It is not only the military and naval service of 
the Empire which would benefit by it, but the civil service 
as well. The civil service of the self-governing states has 
been largely fashioned, as their political institutions have 
almost wholly been, on the model of the Mother Country. 
No doubt that is less true of Canada than of some of the 
sister states. But in Canada also there is a tendency, and 
a very wholesome tendency, to adopt at least the main 
features of the system, which a long and dearly bought 
experience has led us to adopt in the United Kingdom. 
But if we are all going forward on the same lines, why 
do so in water-tight compartments ? Why not have a 
common standard, at any rate in the higher grades of 
the civil service ? The men who possessed that qualifica- 
tion would then be available for administrative work in 
any part of the Empire, and the government of any one 
state would have the best ability and experience of the 
other countries to draw upon as well as that of their 
own. 

I do not see why administrative ability should not flow 
freely between one part of the Empire and another, as 
professional ability already does. We have a Canadian 
professor at Oxford and several Canadian lecturers. That 
is an excellent beginning in one direction. But I think 
it would be of at least equal importance to have Canadian 
attaches at several British embassies which I could name, 
and Canadian administrators in some of our Indian districts. 
Again, in any tariff-making commission that might be 
appointed in the United Kingdom, the experience of men 
from any of the British countries, which already have 
widespread tariffs, would be invaluable. And on the 
other hand, there are probably men in some of the depart- 
ments of the civil service at home who would be useful 



328 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 27, 

for your purposes here in Canada. Permanent transfers 
might be the exception rather than the rule, but temporary 
transfers could with great mutual advantage become quite 
common. They would be of the greatest benefit to the 
individuals concerned, and would tend to keep up a high 
standard all round, and to militate against routine and 
stagnation. 

Now these are only a few instances. I could go on for 
hours giving other illustrations of what I mean by doing 
things together. They are all in harmony with that which 
is the root idea of Imperialists, namely, to develop the 
common life of the Empire. The basis is, of course, our 
existing common citizenship, the fact of our all being, to 
use a technical term, British subjects. Yet we are still 
far, very far, from doing all that we could do to reap the 
benefits which our common citizenship offers, or even to 
show a proper respect for it. Citizenship of the Empire 
is an immense privilege. Yet how careless and haphazard 
is the manner in which it is at present conferred ! There 
is no uniform system of naturalisation in the different 
states. Each deals with the matter without regard to 
the others, and what is the result ? Every man naturalised 
in the United Kingdom, where the period of residence 
required is long, is a British subject in every part of the 
Empire. But a man naturalised in Canada, Australia, 
South Africa or New Zealand, where the periods are shorter 
but different one from another, is only a British subject 
in the particular country in which he is naturalised. This 
is the beginning of chaos. There ought to be the same 
conditions precedent of naturalisation in every part of 
the Empire, and they ought not to be too easy. But once 
admitted to the privileges of British citizenship, a man 
should enjoy them to the full in every country under the 
common flag. 

But the point I am mainly insisting on is, the oppor- 
tunities of individual development and mutual helpfulness 
which our common citizenship affords. Are we doing all 
we can to increase these opportunities ? I believe we 



1908] PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 329 

are doing more than formerly, but still not enough. We 
are only beginning to realise, and that not fully, the impor- 
tance of directing the stream of immigration, and of capital, 
from one part of the Empire to another, rather than to 
foreign countries. And yet every tie, commercial, social, 
educational or political, which causes men to pass and 
repass from one part of the Empire to another, is of real 
importance in welding us together, and making us realise 
the meaning and value of the common citizenship. Multi 
'pertransihunt et augebiiur scieviia. Yes, and not only 
will knowledge be increased, but patriotism — the wider 
patriotism of the whole Empire. 

And again, people cannot all travel, but they can all 
read. How little do people in any part of the Empire 
read of the doings of their fellow-citizens in other parts ? 
Yet they have time to read abundance of trash of all sorts. 
I believe there are many who would gladly read better 
stuff if they had the opportunity. Is it too much to hope 
that now that we have cheaper rates for mailed matter, 
especially if we can also get cheaper telegraphic rates, 
there may be a vast improvement in this respect ? 
Assuredly there is the greatest need for it. It rests largely 
with the enterprise of the Press, and I hope they will rise 
to the height of their great opportunity. 

And now I have done. If I have only touched, hurriedly, 
imperfectly, incoherently, on a few aspects of a vast subject, 
of which my own mind is full, I hope I have at least appeared 
to you to be grappling with a real problem, and not engaged 
in phrasemaldng. People often say to me, ' We wish 
you would give us a short address — just twenty minutes 
or half an hour — about the Empire. It must be quite 
easy for you.' As a matter of fact, there is nothing that 
I find more difficult. I am so intensely conscious of all 
that the Empire stands for in the world, of all that it means 
in the great march of human progress, I am so anxious to 
give full and yet unexaggerated expression to my sense 
of the high privilege of British citizenship. But there is 
nothing so odious as cant, and this is a subject on which 



330 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 31, 

it is particularly easy to seem to be canting. Not that I 
am afraid of falling into a strain of boastfulness. The 
last thing which the thought of the Empire inspires in me 
is a desire to boast — to wave a flag, or to shout ' Rule 
Britannia.' When I think of it, I am much more inclined 
to go into a corner by myself and pray. But, even thus, 
the road is full of pitfalls. One misplaced word, the wrong 
turn of a phrase, may make the sincere expression of life- 
long conviction sound like mere empty verbiage and 
rodomontade. Moreover, I am keenly alive to the amount 
of positive mischief which may be done by a few careless 
expressions. But there are some among my audience who, 
having given years of service to the cause of the Empire, 
must often have felt the same difficulty. I can leave it 
to them, living as they do here amongst you, to interpret 
and supplement my imperfect utterance. And I know 
I shall have all their sympathy when I say that, if it is 
sometimes wearisome and distasteful to have to talk about 
the Empire, there is nothing so bracing, so inspiriting, as 
to try to live for it. 



THE CANADIAN CLUB, OTTAWA.— October 31, 1908 

South African Development 

This is not the first time since coming to Canada that I 
have had to appeal to the indulgence of my audience, on 
the ground that long journeys and a vigorous course of 
sight-seeing are not at all compatible with the adequate 
preparation of addresses worthy of such gatherings as that 
which I see before me to-night. In the present instance, 
1 have indeed had no time for preparation, but the subject 
is one with which I have had so intimate and so recent 
an acquaintance that I may perhaps be able to say some- 
thing sensible and interesting about it, though without 
any attempt at elaboration. The subject about which I 
propose to speak to you, therefore, is South Africa. But 
do not be alarmed at the prospect. South Africa has been, 



i908] SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 331 

and to some extent still is, a topic which excites bitter 
political controversy. Let me say at the outset that I 
shall not refer to any question of a political or controversial 
nature. Putting politics entirely aside, the problems of 
South Africa are extremely interesting, and, in some 
respects, very similar to yours here in Canada. There are 
also, no doubt, many and great differences, to some of which 
I shall presently allude. But I think that a comparison 
of the conditions of the various younger countries of the 
Empire is always full of interest and of instruction. And 
if I read aright the spirit which animates the Canadian 
Clubs, I think that information about other parts of the 
Empire is always welcomed by them, and that it all helps 
to that education in the wider citizenship which it is one 
of their chief objects to promote. 

To begin with, one of the points of similarity which 
strikes one at once between Canada and South Africa is 
the problem of distance. The vastness of both countries, 
the great stretches of hardly-inhabited territory which 
separate the principal centres of settlement, are among 
the main difficulties which have stood in the way of unifi- 
cation both here and there. Hence it comes that the 
question of communication, of transportation, looms so 
large in the history of the development of either country. 
South African prosperity, the connection between different 
parts of South Africa, which will very shortly result in a 
confederation such as yours, would have been absolutely 
impossible without the enterprise of the people who first 
pushed forward the great lines of transcontinental communi- 
cation. The first line of rails which connected the end 
of Lake Superior with the Pacific Ocean, is in its import- 
ance to the history of this country paralleled almost exactly 
by the importance to the history of South Africa of the 
great enterprise which pushed a little local line of 56 
miles — as it was thirty or forty years ago — first some 
700 miles to Kimberley, then, in another direction, some 
thousand or more miles to Johannesburg, and finally 
beyond Kimberley something like 1700 miles to the 



332 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 31, 

Zambesi, and which has since pushed it 500 miles beyond 
the Zambesi into the very heart of Africa. It is impos- 
sible to overestimate the part which a vigorous policy of 
railway construction has played and is playing in South 
Africa, not only in respect of the material development 
of the country, but in making its political unification 
possible. Indeed the iron road, which is indispens- 
able to the effective settlement of every new country 
of extended area, is of more vital importance in South 
Africa than anywhere else. More important even than 
in Canada. For Canada, at any rate in its eastern portion, 
is fortunate in the possession of great lakes and a great 
navigable river. It is almost everywhere rich in water- 
ways. South Africa, on the other hand, is peculiarly 
deficient in inland waterways. It is the railway or nothing 
— ^nothing but the mule-cart or the ox-wagon. It is 
impossible to overestimate the change, the transforma- 
tion, which is wrought in all the conditions of South African 
life by the advent of the railroad. Those portions of the 
country which, like the far north-west of Cape Colony, are 
still devoid of the only effective means of communication, 
continue to present that character of arrested development, 
the sparsity of population, the backwardness, and the 
isolation, which till recently kept almost the whole of this 
country so cut off from the general progress of the world. 

And now the question arises, and it is one to which every- 
body interested in South Africa is looking for an answer, 
what are the possibilities of development within the country 
which has been so recently knitted up ? Many people 
have asked me during my present journey, ' How does 
South Africa compare with Canada in respect of oppor- 
tunities, of the chances which it offers to settlement and 
immigration ? ' This is, of course, a question which it 
is impossible to answer, but there are several aspects of 
it on which it is easy to throw a certain amount of light. 
Speaking generally, the resources of the two countries at 
the present time present the greatest imaginable contrast. 
Canada, though she is by no means deficient in mineral 



igoS] SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 333 

wealth, is still pre-eminently an agricultural country. 
Her main contribution to the markets of the world and 
the main cause of her recent enormous development — ^the 
main cause, though not the only one — is her great and 
growing agricultural wealth, the extent of which is a dis- 
covery of comparatively recent times. 

In the case of South Africa, the position is exactly 
reversed. The agricultural products of South Africa are 
comparatively inconsiderable ; her economic strength lies 
in her enormous mineral wealth. Now, I do not think 
the extent of that mineral wealth is yet by any means 
fully realised. Figures appear in the newspapers con- 
stantly, but it needs a pretty close attention to these 
figures to grasp their full import. Taking gold alone, 
and taking the gold mines of the Transvaal alone, I have 
within my own experience of South Africa seen their out- 
put grow from less than £12,000,000 sterling a year to 
something like £24,000,000. That has been the progress 
in twelve years, despite the great interruption caused by 
the war. And I have no doubt whatever — I remember 
being laughed at when I said this five or six years ago — 
that the production will very soon amount to £30,000,000 
sterling a year, or $150,000,000— £30,000,000 a year taken 
out of the ground along a narrow reef fifty miles in length. 

Now, these are enormous figures. It requires some 
imagination to realise them. And observe that I am 
speaking only of the gold production of a single small 
district — the Witwatersrand. As yet, though, as you 
may imagine, hundreds of men are constantly engaged 
in looking for fresh outcrops, though hardly a month 
passes without rumours of some new discovery — as yet, 
no payable extension of the Rand reefs has been found ; 
nor has anything at all like them been found in other parts 
of the Transvaal or of South Africa. But it will be many 
years yet before the gold-bearing reefs of the Rand, which 
are of sure and unquestionable productiveness, can be 
exhausted. I will not attempt to say how many. That 
is a question which is hotly debated, and about which 



334 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 31. 

there is the greatest difference of opinion among experts. 
My own belief is that, especiallj'^ in view of the constant 
reduction of the cost of working, which tends to bring the 
poorer portions of the reefs within the range of profitable 
exploitation, it may well be fifty years before the Witwaters- 
rand is worked out. It may seem fantastic to contemplate 
an average production of twenty or thirty millions of gold 
a year for half a century, but personally I think it not 
only possible, but probable. 

These, however, are guesses about the future. To 
return to the facts of the present. Next to the Witwaters- 
rand, with twenty to thirty million sterling of gold a year, 
you have the diamond mines of Kimberley producing 
diamonds to as large an amount as the world can afford 
to take. The difficulty there is to keep down production 
in order to prevent prices falling away. In the diamond 
mines of Kimberley you have an annual production of 
between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000, to which there seems 
to be no end for many years to come. And during the 
last few years another diamond mine, the ' Premier,' has 
been opened up near Pretoria in the Transvaal, which is 
probably of even greater extent (though the stones may 
not be of quite the same quality) than the mines at Kim- 
berley. In addition to all this you have gold-mining in 
Rhodesia steadily increasing, and at present amounting 
to between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 a year. And it 
will be strange indeed if this is the end of all things as far 
as the mineral wealth of South Africa is concerned. In 
any case you have this enormous wealth assured for the 
next fifty or perhaps a hundred years. And as I say, it 
would be a strange thing indeed, and contrary to all human 
probability, if other sources of wealth of a similar kind 
were not discovered long before these are exhausted. 

But I have always maintained that the true policy of 
South African development is to assume that this immense 
wealth, which is certain, is the end of all things there ; 
that is, in the way of precious metals. I hold that it is 
wise to assume that there is nothing more to come, and 



igoS] SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 335 

to devote ourselves betimes to the development of other 
resources upon which the country can live when these 
minerals are exhausted. That is, to my mind, the sum 
and substance of wisdom so far as the economic future 
of South Africa is concerned. The revenue of the country 
depends practically, at present, upon its mineral produc- 
tion ; the mineral wealth keeps the country going. But 
it is not enough that it should merely keep the country 
going. By means of this mineral wealth other resources 
must be built up on which the country may live when the 
precious metals have been dug out of the ground. This 
will be more and more recognised as the true policy of 
South African development. The question is, what other 
resources are there ? 

Let me say at once that there is nothing, and there never 
can be anything, at all equal, from the point of view of 
agricultural wealth, to your Western prairie. I have no 
doubt about that. There is nothing of that size and con- 
tinuous quality. There are splendid patches of agricul- 
tural land, but not so enormous, not so continuous, not 
so sure. Still, there is a great variety of resources at 
present quite untouched. For instance, the wealth of 
South Africa in coal is only just beginning to be tapped, 
and her wealth in iron, which in some parts of the country, 
especially in the Transvaal, is very great, is so far quite 
untouched. 

Having regard not only to the quantity of coal and iron, 
but to their juxtaposition, the closeness in which these 
deposits lie to one another, there is, I believe, no reason- 
able doubt that the time must come, sooner or later, when 
the production of iron and of all the articles into the com- 
position of which steel and iron enter, will play a very 
important part, and that it may very well be the case that 
the centre of South Africa will be the greatest industrial 
region of the southern hemisphere. It is impossible to 
speak positively on this subject, but it is a matter which 
in estimating the chances of the future cannot be left out 
of the account, and one which those who have the control 



336 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 31. 

of the affairs of the country would do well to keep con- 
stantly in view. Of course, it stands to reason that so 
long as a very limited European population has this vast 
quantity of precious metals to exploit, they will pay a 
lesser degree of attention to other products which may be 
permanently of even greater benefit to the country, but 
the exploitation of which gives less immediate profit. 
Therefore, the development of minerals, other than the 
precious metals, is a matter which will come gradually, 
and which may not attract so much attention until the 
working of the precious metals shows some signs of coming 
to an end. And so coal and iron, especially iron, are for 
the present comparatively neglected. 

But, if the mineral resources of South Africa, other 
than the precious metals, are of problematical development, 
something substantial can certainly be done, and some- 
thing is being done, to increase the productivity of the 
soil. And people are beginning to discover that if in this 
respect South Africa can never hope to rival the most 
favoured countries, she is nevertheless capable of far more 
than people once gave her credit for. The old idea of South 
Africa was that though the rich coast strip might yield 
the most valuable products of a sub-tropical climate, that 
strip was not very large and not very healthy, and that 
the healthy high veld, which constitutes the bulk of South 
Africa, was incapable of being more than a moderately 
good sheep -farming or ranching country. And a great 
deal of the veld can undoubtedly never be anything else 
than a pastoral country. Large tracts of it, mainly in 
Cape Colony, can only support sheep, and other large 
tracts have so far never supported anything but horses 
and cattle. But since this matter has been taken syste- 
matically in hand people have begun to discover, in the 
first place, that land which used to be considered only 
valuable as pasture will really bear rich crops, especially 
mealies ; and again, that a great deal of country which 
it was thought could only bear crops with irrigation 
can, under more scientific treatment, bear crops of value 



i9o8] SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 337 

even without this artificial assistance. These discoveries, 
together with the great improvement which is being effected 
in the quality of flocks and herds by the introduction 
of better breeds, and by the successful war waged on the 
greatest curse of South Africa, epidemic disease among 
animals, are opening a new prospect to the South African 
farmer. If only the other great scourge to which he is 
exposed, the plague of locusts, can be tackled with equal 
success, the future will be a bright one. And there is every 
hope of such improvement. 

One of the most important features in South Africa 
to-day is the development of her agricultural resources by 
the means of science. That is of special interest to Canadians 
for two reasons. One is that this development is a good 
deal similar to what has happened in your own West, 
in this respect, that in the West to-day millions of acres 
are being cultivated with the greatest profit, which were 
despaired of even by good judges of agriculture ten or 
twenty years ago. The supposed di£S.culty and supposed 
impossibility have turned out to be a delusion. Precisely 
the same thing is happening, though on nothing like the 
same scale, in South Africa to-day, and land is being profit- 
ably used which in time past was looked upon as hopeless. 
And there is another point which will be of interest to you. 
This development, which has begun within the last few 
years, is largely due to the fact that, directly after the war, 
we started in the two new colonies, the Transvaal and the 
Orange River Colony, very active agricultural depart- 
ments. The Government took the matter up as it never 
had been taken up before. Up to that time the principle 
of South African government was very much the same as 
that which at one time dominated the minds of people 
in Great Britain, namely, that the development of the 
resources of a country was not a thing which concerned 
the Government, but that all the Government had to do 
was to keep order, to see fair play between man and man, 
perhaps to remove any barriers which might stand in the 
way of trade and industry, and to trust to the enterprise 

Y 



338 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 31, 

and energy of individuals to do the rest. As a matter of 
fact, that system has rarely answered. I do not think it 
is a perfect theory for an old country ; it never answered 
in a new one. Now, in South Africa, the first thing which 
the Government did after the war, and which was carried 
on side by side with repairing the damage of the war, 
was to try to start the country, in every respect, but 
especially in respect of agricultural development, on a 
higher plane than that on which the commencement of the 
war found it. 

We looked round the world to find the men who might 
be competent to run a thoroughly scientific and energetic 
agricultural department in both the new colonies. And 
we found them in different parts of the world, but we found 
some of the best of them on this continent, and especially 
in Canada. And not only did some of the men come from 
Canada, but I think all the men who came, in any leading 
and responsible position, had made a special study of the 
agricultural development which has been so characteristic 
of the United States and of Canada. For that teaching 
of scientific agriculture which is going, I believe, to effect 
the transformation of a large part of South Africa, a com- 
plete transformation of its economic condition, we looked 
to the experience and the lessons of scientific agriculture 
in this country. And I am glad to think that, despite 
all the differences which divide South Africans to-day, 
and despite the contrast which in some respects undoubtedly 
exists between the present regime and the regime which 
preceded it, the agricultural departments of the new 
colonies have struck root to such an extent, and the good 
work that they have already achieved has received such 
an amount of recognition, that, whatever may happen to 
other things, this is a piece of solid progress which nothing 
is going to undo. 

Now, one word in conclusion, on a wholly different subject. 
I have purposely avoided all political references, but there 
is one political question, not of a controversial nature, 
which naturally excites so much interest to-day, that I 



i9o8] SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 339 

wish very briefly to refer to it. I allude to the great 
subject which is being considered at Durban during these 
very days — the federation or, as some prefer to put it, the 
unification of South Africa, Call it what you will, the 
problem is to create one central legislature and govern- 
ment for all South Africa, with or without subordinate 
provincial governments and legislatures. The result of 
the conference at Durban will, I have not the least doubt, 
be the closer union of South Africa. The exact form of 
that union I would rather not attempt to forecast. But 
there is this great difference between the problem of the 
union of the South African states and the problem which 
confronted the statesmen of Canada before Confedera- 
tion, that there is nothing really separating the states 
of South Africa to-day except artificial boundaries. I do 
not mean to say that there are not deep divisions among 
the people of South Africa. There are deep divisions, 
and only time can overcome them and draw the two great 
European races together into one nation, and perhaps a 
long time may be required. But these divisions exist 
inside every one of the states, not absolutely in the same 
proportion, but in very much the same proportion. It 
is not a case, for instance, of bringing together a British 
community and a Dutch community ; it is a question of 
uniting a number of communities in all of which these same 
elements exist. Therefore, so far as the question of race 
is concerned, great as are the difficulties which it presents, 
it does not present any special difficulties to union, because, 
whatever problems may arise from the coexistence of 
nations of different languages and ideas in one body -politic, 
these problems already exist in each of the separate states, 
and they are not going to be increased, but rather diminished, 
or, at any rate, modified, by uniting those separate states 
into one state. The obstacles to union are of another 
character, and perhaps the greatest of them is, that one 
of the states is so much wealthier and more prosperous, 
at the time being, than the rest, that there may be 
people within that state who do not wish to share their 



340 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i, 

prosperity with the rest of South Africa ; and, on the other 
hand, there may be people in the other states who are 
afraid of coming into the partnership with such an over- 
whelming neighbour. I do not, however, believe that 
this or any other difficulty will prevent the union from 
being accomphshed. The majority of people in all the 
states, of people of both races, are too much alive to its 
necessity. And they all have a great common difficulty 
to face — I am speaking of the white people — ^in the fact 
that, though they are the absolute masters of the country, 
the ruling race, they are still only a minority, and a small 
minority, in the midst of a much more numerous coloured 
population. The whites number a million and a quarter, 
there or thereabouts. But the coloured population, mostly 
pure blacks, are four or five times as numerous. And that 
is a situation which is full of difficulty, and which consti- 
tutes no doubt the most serious of all the problems which 
lie before South Africa. The precise nature of the diffi- 
culty is, indeed, often misunderstood. There is no ques- 
tion, at least not in my opinion, of the black population 
ever becoming a danger to the political supremacy, to 
the government of the whites. There may be occasional 
rebellions. I doubt whether they will be frequent or very 
serious. In any case I am sure the white races will be 
more than able to cope with them. The real danger, if 
I may so express myself, is not a military, but a social 
one. It lies in the influence which contact with a less 
civilised race, in fact, the mere presence of a less civilised 
race, may have upon the European population itself. 
One consequence of the fact that the coloured people are 
the majority, the subject majority, and that they con- 
stitute what you might call the working class, is that 
work, manual labour such as it is no discredit for a man 
to perform in any European country, no discredit, but the 
contrary, comes to be regarded as beneath the dignity of 
a white man in South Africa. He will not do what he 
considers a black man's work. If he is obliged to do it, 
he feels himself degraded by it. This tends to indolence, 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 341 

to an unhealthy contempt for many kinds of work, which 
are in themselves honom'able, on the part of the whites. 
It tends to the degradation of those of them who are, 
after all, compelled to do work of that kind, and so to 
the creation of that socially undesirable stratum which is 
known, in the southern states for instance, by the name 
of ' mean whites.' 

Time does not allow me to dwell at greater length on 
this difficult and complex subject. I only wanted to point 
out that the Native Question, which naturally exercises 
the minds of all men in South Africa, is a question rather 
different in its character from what it is commonly sup- 
posed to be by the outside world. But, whatever its 
difficulties, it will no doubt be easier to deal with in a united 
South Africa, than under three or four different and con- 
flicting systems in the different states. For this, as for 
every other reason, those who have the welfare of South 
Africa at heart — and we must all desire the welfare of that 
great and important part of our common Empire — cannot 
but feel an earnest wish that the present effort to bring 
about South African union may be crowned with success. 



BOARD OF TRADE, MONTREAL.— November 1, 1908 

Preferential Trade 

Speaking at Toronto the other day, I expressed the belief 
that the policy of Tariff Reform was at no distant date going 
to prevail in the United Kingdom. Prophecies are cheap, 
and that is, of course, only a personal opinion. Still it is 
one which I hold very strongly. And it is quite certain 
that, if Tariff Reform does come, it will come to stay. Parties 
may very probably still be divided with reference to the 
range of the tariff or the height of particular duties. But 
no party is likely to propose a simple return to our exist- 
ing system, any more than at the present time any party 
in Canada advocates the complete reversal of the so-called 
National Policy originated by Sir John Macdonald. 



342 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i, 

But assuming the United Kingdom to adopt a tariff 
similar in its general character to that of other great 
industrial and commercial nations — similar to that of 
Germany, for instance, though no doubt with a much 
lower average rate of duties, especially on foodstuffs — a 
great change will come over the whole aspect of the Imperial 
problem. For it will then be possible to reciprocate the 
preference at present given by Canada and other dominions 
to the Mother Country, and the prospect of a great develop- 
ment of trade within the Empire will seem much nearer 
than it does to-day. 

Now, to my mind, what is known as Preferential Trade 
between different parts of the Empire has always appeared 
one of the happiest and most fertile ideas ever introduced 
into the sphere of national economics. To treat the 
Empire as an economic whole without any internal barriers 
is not a practical proposition. On the other hand, it is 
both bad business and bad politics that the different com- 
munities within the Empire should deal with one another 
in any respect as if they were foreign countries. The 
policy of Preference is a working compromise. And it is 
a principle of wide application affecting a great deal else 
besides import duties. If the United Kingdom were to 
remain, as I for one feel convinced it will not remain, 
a country of unrestricted free imports, I should still adhere 
to the principle of preference, I should still, for instance, 
desire to see the stream of emigration and of capital directed 
from the United Kingdom to other parts of the British 
Empire rather than to foreign countries, though without 
a change in the British tariff, and consequently without 
the possibility of substantial mutual concessions in respect 
of Customs duties, it would be much more difficult so to 
direct it. 

Even at the risk of wearying you, I should like to make 
this point of view perfectly clear. The principle of Pre- 
ference, and the reasons for it, I should define as follows : 
in the interests of the Empire as a whole we are bound to 
desire the greatest development, in economic as in other 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 343 

respects, of every part of it. It follows that every part, 
which like any of the self-governing dominions is a distinct 
and independent economic unit, must be free, as indeed 
they all are free, to shape its fiscal policy according to its 
own special requirements, with a view to the fullest develop- 
ment of its own wealth and productive power. The same, 
of course, applies to the United Kingdom itself. But 
subject to that, it is desirable to encourage the maximum 
of intercourse, including, of course, commercial intercourse, 
between the different states, and to foster trade within 
the Empire to the greatest possible extent. Nothing 
could contribute more to that result than the general 
adoption of the rule, that, other things being equal, or 
very nearly equal, the people of any state in the Empire 
should obtain what they need to obtain outside their own 
borders, from other portions of the Empire, rather than 
from foreign countries ; that wherever they reasonably 
can, they should give their custom to their own kith and 
kin rather than to foreigners. Mutual concessions in 
respect of tariffs must exercise a powerful influence in 
that direction ; they must tend to lead trade into channels 
within the Empire rather than into channels outside it ; 
not to divert it from its natural course, but to keep it in 
one course rather than another where both are natural. 
They constitute a permanent factor of immense import- 
ance, just turning the scale in innumerable cases in favour 
of one source of supply as against a competing source of 
supply ; in favour of a British as against a non-British 
source. 

I maintain that if any group of nations, situated as the 
great self-governing dominions of the Empire are rela- 
tively to one another, were to adopt such a policy of mutual 
concessions, they would be the gainers by it. It would 
tend to give stability to trade, it would tend to give their 
several exports a position of vantage and security in certain 
great markets, and would mitigate the risks and uncer- 
tainties of unrestricted international competition. 

So much from the economic point of view pure and 



344 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i, 

simple. But the case for reciprocal concessions between 
different parts of the Empire is, of course, immensely 
strengthened when we consider also their political effect. 
By buying its wheat, as far as possible, from Canada 
rather than from Argentina, the United Kingdom will be 
helping to build up the prosperity of the Dominion. By 
buying china and earthenware, or glassware or cutlery 
from the United Kingdom rather than from Germany or 
Belgium, Canada is helping to give employment to British 
instead of foreign hands. By obtaining her sugar from 
the West Indies instead of the continent of Europe, Canada 
is making all the difference to the economic prospects of 
the West Indies. Needless to argue that development 
and employment in any part of the Empire is more impor- 
tant to us than an equivalent amount of development or 
employment in some foreign country. 

Stated in broad and general terms, that is our case. I 
should like to illustrate it more particularly by what has 
happened already as a consequence of the preference given 
to the United Kingdom by Canada, and what would be 
likely to happen if that preference were reciprocated. 

Now, as regards the benefit which the trade of the United 
Kingdom has derived from the existing Canadian prefer- 
ence, there really is no room for dispute. Every now and 
then some ill-informed free importer still ventures to 
belittle that benefit. But in a close examination of the 
trade statistics in detail it is impossible for any fair-minded 
man to resist the conclusion that, as a very competent 
observer put it to me the other day, ' Preference has kept 
Great Britain from losing such trade with Canada as she 
has still got.' On this point I might quote the words of 
Mr. Bain, formerly Deputy Commissioner of Canadian 
Customs, which are contained in an appendix to a most 
valuable report on the Conditions and Prospects of British 
Trade in Canada, published as a Blue-book in London 
this year. Mr. Bain says (p. 108) : — 

' DeaKng now with the preferential tariff, I venture to assert 
in the strongest way that, if such preference had not been 



1908] PREFERENTIAL TRx4DE 345 

granted, British, trade with Canada Avould be on a very small 
basis to-day.' 

Again he says : 

' The preference undoubtedly accomplished the purpose for 
which it was intended, and it not only arrested the decline in 
British trade, but gave it a very healthy impetus.' 

I believe that these are conclusions based on evidence, 
and evidence so strong that no fair-minded and well- 
informed free importer can refuse to accept it. The 
present Chancellor of the Exchequer,^ as you know, has 
accepted it. While arguing that to adopt reciprocity 
would cost the United Kingdom too dear, he admitted in 
the freest and most generous terms the advantage to the 
United Kingdom of the Canadian preference. And the 
same is true of the preference given by other Dominions. 
I think you may take it that on this point controversy is 
practically over, and that the benefit derived by the United 
Kingdom from existing preferences, if nothing occurs at 
this juncture to impair that benefit, is going to be one of 
the most powerful weapons in the hands of Tariff Reformers, 
and will contribute materially to the victory which I 
anticipate. 

That victory would, I hold, be of immense importance, 
not only to the United Kingdom, but also to Canada. I 
am not sure that the bearing of it on your own develop- 
ment is fully realised. People in this country certainly 
seem to be in favour, and strongly in favour, of the United 
Kingdom granting a preference in return for the Canadian 
preference ; but I think they are in favour of it as a matter 
of sentiment, as a matter of principle, and not so much 
from any behef in the importance of its practical effects. 
And I can well understand that to the farmer of the West, 
for instance, in the first rush of his new prosperity, to the 
man who finds the crop of a single year replacing or almost 
replacing all that he has spent upon his land, the advan- 
tage of two or three cents a bushel against an unseen com- 
petitor in a distant market may appear a matter of very 

^ Mr. Lloyd George. 



346 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i. 

small account. He probably does not give it a thought 
— not at present. But things will not always be as they 
are at present. The West as a whole, indeed agricultural 
Canada as a whole, is bound to develop and grow immensely 
in wealth and prosperity ; but individual profits will not 
show as large as they do now, though even now they only 
do so over a special and limited area. Mixed farming will 
gradually take the place of specialised wheat-farming over 
a large part at least of the Western prairie. And even 
specialised wheat-farming where it may still prevail will 
require more capital than it did at the outset. Moreover, 
Canada is not the only country which is making prodigious 
strides in agricultural development. Her food products, 
whether vegetable or animal, whether the wheat and oats 
of the Western prairie or the cheese and butter of the 
province of Quebec, in so far as they are not consumed at 
home, will have to compete in external markets, and above 
all in the great British market, with similar products from 
many parts of the world, and especially from the Argentine. 
In the keenness of that competition a very small permanent 
advantage will have a very great effect. Two or three 
cents a bushel may seem a small matter. They are not a 
small matter when multiplied by two hundred millions. 

Moreover, this is a question of development. All the 
new countries want capital. There is not enough spare 
capital in the world to go round. In the competition for 
what there is, which is the fiercest competition of aU, an 
advantage will lie with the countries which appear to be 
more profitable as fields for investment, because, other 
things being equal, their products are in a position to com- 
pete on specially favourable terms in some of the most 
important markets. And that consideration will teU with 
peculiar force in Great Britain, where, if the principle of 
Preference were to be endorsed by the nation, a great 
impetus would be given to the sentimental as well as the 
material influences making for the investment of British 
capital in other parts of the Empire rather than in foreign 
countries. 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 347 

And in this general Canadian development all classes will 
share. It is not merely a question for the farmer. The 
transportation agencies, the manufacturers, are equally- 
concerned. Indeed, the position of the Canadian manu- 
facturers — I do not, of course, expect them to admit this 
— seems a peculiarly favourable one. They have got 
a protected home market, which gives every promise of 
vast expansion. Whatever Canadians require, which 
Canadian manufacturers can produce at anything like 
equal cost with other people, Canadian manufacturers 
will supply. 

But at the same time, as I hope and believe, under 
Preference British manufacturers will get the lion's share 
of the rest, in so far as they can supply it. I lay great 
stress on that qualification. People are often perturbed 
by the great growth of trade between Canada and the 
United States. I do not think it is necessarily injurious 
to trade between Canada and the United Kingdom. There 
are a vast number of articles which Canada draws from 
the United States, which she could not by any possibility 
draw from Great Britain. The trade of this country with 
the United States will grow, and ought to grow, but its 
growth need not involve any injury — quite the reverse — 
either to Canadian or British industries. The bulk of 
the importations into Canada from the United States 
does not hurt them at all, though I do not, of course, deny 
that there are some classes of goods imported into Canada 
from the United States, which I should prefer to see 
imported from the United Kingdom. 

I say I think the position of the Canadian manufacturers 
is a very strong one. But I should like, certainly with 
great fear and trembling, and quite foreseeing that I may 
bring an avalanche on my unlucky head, to utter one 
word of warning. 

There is a growing feeling in favour of Free Trade in 
many parts of the country. I do not think it will prevail. 
I do not think that, either in the interests of Canada or 
of the Empire, it is desirable that it should prevail. But 



348 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i, 

I believe the movement would become very formidable 
if the bow of Protection were strung too tightly, and 
indeed if it were not, as time and circumstances demand, 
to be somewhat relaxed. From the point of view of the 
manufacturers themselves it would be a mistake to be 
too aggressive. As long as they retain a position of sub- 
stantial vantage in the home market, they have no interest, 
but the reverse, in diminishing the prosperity of their own 
customers, as excessive duties do diminish it. And as 
regards the position between Canadian and British manu- 
facturers let me say just this : a good deal of harm was 
done at one time by the idea that the policy of Preference 
aimed at an artificial division of industries between Canada 
and the United Kingdom, certain kinds of manufactures 
being, so to speak, appropriated to Canada, and the United 
Kingdom being left undisturbed in the exercise of others. 
I do not believe in such an artificial limitation, but I do 
beUeve that, with reasonable tariffs and mutual preference, 
there will be something like a natural adjustment. The 
policy of Preference is sometimes represented as an exchange 
of sacrifices. It is nothing of the kind, and the word 
sacrifice is quite out of place in connection with it. The 
idea simply is that, while Canada should make for herself 
everything she can make at a reasonable cost, she should 
buy what she cannot so make from the rest of the Empire 
rather than from outside it, provided that the rest of the 
Empire is capable, again at a reasonable cost, of supplying 
it. As a matter of fact, if this principle were adopted, 
there would in practice be something hke a division of 
labour in supplying the Canadian market between Canadian 
and British maimfacturers. 

And no doubt friction would occasionally arise, though 
with good management it ought to arise very seldom. 
With regard to such cases, to cases for instance where it 
is urged that the British preference, even though it still 
leaves a high duty upon the British article, nevertheless 
tends to prejudice the Canadian producer, and to transfer 
work from Canadian to English or Scotch hands, all I can 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 349 

say is, I do not want British preference to harm Canada 
in any way whatsoever, but I want the matter considered, 
from the point of view of Canada, of Canadian industry 
as a whole, and not merely from that of a particular trade. 
It is all a question of degree, of what is a reasonable amount 
of protection to the Canadian producer. But it is quite 
evident that if a particular trade or trades, which have 
no natural advantages in Canada, can make the Canadian 
consumer pay much more than their value for their pro- 
ducts, he wiU have so much less to spend on the products 
of other Canadian industries which may be much more 
suitable to Canadian conditions. In such a case it is not 
only to the advantage of the United Kingdom, but to the 
advantage of Canadian industry as a whole, that the 
British producer should come in. And there is one thing 
more to be said about such causes of friction. They will 
be rare, but we can never expect altogether to avoid them. 
I think, however, that they will only be dangerous as long 
as the system of Preference is in its infancy, and especially 
as long as it is one-sided. At present if any Canadian 
trade is or thinks itself unfairly affected by the preference 
given to British goods, there is no one in Canada interested 
in presenting the case on the other side, and so ensuring that 
it shall be fairly considered on its merits. But once let 
the whole body of Canadian exporters be interested in 
maintaining a preference for Canadian goods in the United 
Kingdom, once let the whole Canadian community feel 
the benefits of closer commercial relations with the United 
Kingdom, and any aggrieved trade will have to make out 
a real case before it will be able to obtain public sympathy. 
And it must not be forgotten that Canadian manu- 
facturers themselves will be directly as well as indirectly 
interested in the maintenance of a preferential duty by 
the United Kingdom. One of the features of Tariff Reform 
will certainly be a tax on imported manufactures. Now, 
Canadian manufactures already compete to some extent 
in the markets of the United Kingdom — ^take agricul- 
tural implements, for instance — with similar manufactures 



350 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [no v. i, 

from other countries, and expecially from the United States. 
Strong and growing Canadian industries will be increas- 
ingly engaged in such competition in the British market. 
I think they will be among the keenest defenders of 
preference for British goods in the Canadian market 
against any unreasonable attack. 

And now, in conclusion, only two further remarks. I 
sometimes hear complaints in Canada about the slow 
progress which the idea of mutual preference seems to 
make in the United Kingdom, and I hear that slow progress 
attributed to a want of sympathy, of response, on the part 
of the Mother Country to the advances made to her by 
Canada and the other self-governing Dominions, to some- 
thing like a refusal to grasp their outstretched hands. 
That impression is natural, extremely natural, but it is 
nevertheless an erroneous one. To us, who know all the 
enormous difficulties which the new departure in economic 
thought had to encounter in Great Britain, progress does 
not seem slow, but fast. And in any case I am sure that 
our delay and hesitation is not due to any want of sympathy 
with the idea of a closer union of the Empire. 

At heart the vast majority of people in the Old Country 
have a very strong feeling of attachment to the young 
countries of the Empire, a very strong desire that the bonds 
between all the members of the Imperial family may be 
maintained and strengthened. The bulk of the British 
people are Unionists at heart — ^Unionists, I mean, not in 
any party sense, but in the sense of desiring to keep the 
Empire together. No doubt there is a section of which 
this is not true, a section who really are Little Englanders, 
Cosmopolitans and Separatists. And no doubt also the 
operation of the party system often gives to this, as to 
other minorities, a much greater influence than they are 
entitled to either by their numbers or their character. 
But it is quite certain that the attitude of this section is 
entirely out of accord with the general national sentiment. 
And if there is delay in accepting either the idea of mutual 
preference, or any other proposal which aims at promoting 



i9o8] PREFERENTIAL TRADE 351 

Imperial unity, it is due to doubts as to the efficacy of the 
particular scheme to attain its object, and not to any want 
of sympathy with the object itself. 

And, lastly, let me say this : No man is a stronger 
advocate of Preference than I am, but do not let me be 
supposed to hold that Preference alone, even in its widest 
application, is going to solve the whole problem of Imperial 
unity. Trade relations are important, very important, 
and very far-reaching, but they are not everything. 
Neither do I know that closer trade relations, immense as 
their value would be in keeping us together, will necessarily 
lead to the growth of common political institutions or of 
a common poHcy. 

The reason for putting up a big fight for Preference is 
that it is something making in the right direction (some- 
thing in itself desirable on economic grounds, and desirable 
in its ulterior effects on wider grounds) which is immediately 
practical. It is something which can be accomplished 
now. The great danger of the whole Imperial move- 
ment is that it may lose itself in aspirations. And in 
some ways that danger is greatest with the very people 
who are the keenest Imperiahsts. They have a great and 
splendid ideal — I entirely sympathise with it — of an out- 
and-out federation, and they are apt to think that unless 
we have got that, nothing at aU can be done. My own 
feeling is that so far from there being nothing to be done, 
hardly a day passes on which something might not be 
done, some impulse given in a right direction, some check 
given to movement in a wrong one. I am all for the big 
ideal, but am quite equally convinced of the necessity of 
tackling practical problems as they in fact arise, provided 
we tackle them in the right spirit. Preference is a real 
live issue, which affects vast numbers of people and 
interests everybody. It is a real live question, and there- 
fore it is worth all our efforts to bring it to a satisfactory 
conclusion, not only for its own. sake, but for the sake 
of the moral, for the sake of the demonstration that we 
are not unpractical visionaries, but that the spirit which 



352 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 2, 

animates us, while it may find its full satisfaction only in 
some future and as yet distant achievement, is capable of 
accomplishing here and now results which are of great 
immediate value to all the communities within the Empire. 



WOMEN'S CANADIAN CLUB, MONTREAL 

November 2, 1908 

Imperialism and Social Reform 

Althofgh I do not propose to preach a sermon, I am going 
to begin with a text. And with characteristic modesty I 
am going to take that text from one of my own old speeches. 
I have said the same thing a dozen different times in different 
words, at different places, but this is how I seem to have 
said it at Rugby, on November 19, 1907 : ' The greatest 
danger that I foresee is that the ideals of national strength 
and Imperial consolidation on the one hand, and of domestic 
reform and social progress on the other, should become 
dissevered, and that people should come to regard as 
antagonistic objects which are essentially related and 
complementary to one another.' 1 

I believe in national greatness and power, but I hope 
I take a fairly comprehensive view of what constitutes 
them. It is not only armies and navies, though these have 
their functions to perform ; it is not merely guns and ships, 
though these also are necessary ; it is not merely a well- 
filled treasury and good credit ; it is not merely high 
policy, though according as that is wise, prudent and 
far-seeing, or short-sighted, spasmodic and impulsive, the 
value of fieets and armies and reserve funds may be greatly 
heightened or diminished. I say ultimately greatness and 
power rest on the welfare and contentedness of the mass 
of the people. And this involves so much : the physical 
health of men and women with all that is necessary to 
insure it ; air, space, cleanliness, exercise, good houses, 
good food, and all that is generally included in domestic 
economy. Physical health first as the basis ; then, of 

1 See pp. 249-60. 



i9o8] IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 353 

course, trained intelligence, the power of thought and 
observation, quickness of hand and eye, the development 
of various forms of industrial skill, and so forth. 

I might go on aU day recounting the multitude of things 
which make for the welfare and contentedness of a people, 
from physical health onwards, through education, to the 
highest planes of morality and religion, things which were 
never better summed up than in the old prayer-book 
phrase of ' health, wealth, and godhness.' But my special 
point is that all this involves an immense amount of social 
organisation. In our complex modern society there is 
room, no doubt aU the room and the need in the world, 
for individual enterprise and initiative. But there is no 
room for a policy of laissez-faire, of ' go-as-you-please and 
the devil take the hindmost,' unless you are prepared to 
have such a mass of ' hindmosts,' such a number of failures 
as will drag down the whole community to a lower level. 
In the keen rivalry of nations, in the constant competi- 
tion between them, from which none can escape (I am not 
thinking of war ; wars might for ever cease, but there 
would stiU be competition in peace), one of the things 
which is going to count most is waste, waste of human 
power through bad social and industrial arrangements. 
There is a great silent force always working on the side of 
those nations which waste least in that respect. 

One other point. I have spoken of weU-being and con- 
tentedness. You cannot have contentedness, as distin- 
guished from mere sluggish acquiescence, without a certain 
measure of well-being. More than that, you cannot have 
patriotism. Not that I mean to say for a moment that 
patriotism is the exclusive possession of the well-to-do. 
One often finds the strongest sentiments of patriotism in 
members of what is commonly known as the working class, 
and there is good reason for that too. I think in some 
respects the dignity of citizenship, pride in being a member 
of a great nation, is a more valued possession to the man 
in a humble station than it is to the great and wealthy, 
who have so much else to enjoy and be proud of. But 

z 



354 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 2, 

there is a limit to this. Patriotism, like all the ideal sides 
of life, can be choked, must be choked, in the squalor and 
degradation of the slums of our great cities, or by excep- 
tionally hard and cruel conditions of life anywhere. 

' No shade for those that sicken 
In the furnace fire of life, 

No hope of more or better 

This side the hungry grave, 
Till death release the debtor, 

Eternal sleep the slave.' 

Where conditions exist which cause feelings such as 
these to take possession of great numbers of the people — 
and I fear such conditions do exist frequently in many 
of our large centres of population — ^you cannot expect to 
find patriotism. You cannot expect a casual labourer in 
an English town, for instance, working for fifteen or twenty 
shillings a week, and having a wife and family to support, 
and no certainty that he will get even that fifteen or twenty 
shillings from week to week, I say you cannot expect that 
man to set much store by being a citizen of a great Empire, 
or even to care about a vote, except for what he may get 
out of it for himself or his class. I need not dwell further 
upon this. I hope I have made my point clear. It is 
that one of the essentials of national greatness is good social 
organisation, and that patriotism and Imperiahsm (Imperi- 
alism, which is simply the highest development of patriotism 
in the free peoples of a world-wide state) must look inwards 
to the foundations of society, to prevent disease at the 
roots, as well as outwards, to ward off external danger and 
attack. 

And here is where the influence of women especially 
comes in. I do not mean to say that I underestimate their 
influence in any branch of national poHcy. On the con- 
trary, it may be of quite pecuhar value all round, were 
it only in this respect — ^that it is less hkely to be deflected 
from the right line in any great national and Imperial issue 
hy party considerations than is the opinion of the average 



igoS] IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 355 

man. No doubt women, too, are often partisans, bitter 
partisans, but they are not brigaded, platooned, as men 
are, in party divisions. They are not exposed to the same 
temptation or to the same pressure as men often are, to 
subordinate pubhc, national, Imperial interests, to the 
interests or supposed interests of a party organisation. I 
say, Heaven forbid that we should try to circumscribe the 
influence of women in public life. And very fortunately, 
even if we wished to, we could not do it. Their influence 
is, in fact, all-pervading. But their actual work will neces- 
sarily lie mainly in the sphere of internal and social develop- 
ment. What I want them to realise is that in doing that 
work well they are rendering national and Imperial service 
as much as any soldier or sailor or diplomatist. 

I have been told that one of the foremost of living English- 
women recently addressed this club, and that all that she 
talked about was the provision of playgrounds and other 
means of recreation for the children of the poor in London 
and other great centres of population in the United Kingdom. 
I think she was perfectly right. What does one of our 
greatest modern writers and artists in words say about 
this ? In simple and childlike language, no doubt, for he 
was only writing A Child's Garden of Verses, but yet with 
deep underlying truth, he says : — 

' Happy hearts and happy faces, 
Happy play in grassy places, 
This is how in ancient ages 
Children grew to kings and sages.' 

I do not know that there is any greater Imperial service 
that could be rendered than if we were to provide, as we 
do not provide, but as we might provide, ample space and 
means of healthy recreation for even the poorest children 
in our great cities. 

Now, this is a problem, one of a group of problems, 
which are no doubt less urgent and which come home less 
to you in a vast thinly-peopled country like Canada than 
they do to us in the crowded, thickly-populated countries 



356 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 2. 

of Western Europe. But I am not sure that the pecuhar 
difficulties of a crowded town life are not going to be repro- 
duced on this side of the Atlantic, only with added irony, 
because there is so much room. I do not know how many 
of those present have read a book called The Jungle. 
It gives a terrible picture, an exaggerated picture, no doubt, 
but still, I fear, not one wholly devoid of truth, of very 
undesirable social conditions in one of the great cities of 
the United States. I do not think there is anything like 
that in Canada. Far from it. But I do think that the 
people in many of the new towns which are growing so 
fast, especially in the Canadian West, hardly realise how 
rapidly slums, and the other evil features of a crowded 
town life, do spring up, unless careful provision is made 
beforehand to avert them — provision so easy to make in 
the first instance, if people would only be sufficiently far- 
sighted, so hard to make afterwards, when all the surround- 
ing open space has been taken up and has attained a 
prohibitive value. Then, when it is too late, people are 
sure to regret that in the first instance they did not reserve 
sufficient elbow-room for a large population and a suffi- 
ciently ample public domain. But if men are too much 
absorbed in their business or in political questions of more 
immediate interest, but by no means of equal ultimate 
importance, to think of such things, surely the women 
might look after them. 

Now please observe that this is merely a single illustra- 
tion of a neglected public interest. I want women to 
come to the rescue, especially on the neglected sides of 
public life. I do not believe in a division of interests — I 
mean, to confine women to one class of questions and men 
to another. I do not believe in a division of interests of 
that kind, but I do believe in a division of labour. We 
cannot afford to dispense with the aid of women in the 
great work of social organisation, if only because there 
are not men enough to go round. 

I often hear of there being too many people in a particular 
trade or a particular profession, but I have never yet hea-rd 



igoS] IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 357 

of a plethora of men available for the innumerable kinds 
of public and social work which require doing. The fields 
are ripe for the harvest, but where are the labourers ? 
We cannot, I say, afford to dispense with the aid which 
women are willing and able to give. Some people maintain 
that when one talks like this one is encouraging women 
to neglect their domestic duties, that one is taking them 
out of their proper sphere, and so forth. No sane person 
would encourage women to go into pubHc work to the 
neglect of their domestic duties. But there are many of 
them who have time to spare, who have special gifts for 
social work, and who are very anxious to undertake it. I 
say it would be madness to repress them, especially when 
there is so much work which goes undone. We have begun 
to learn this lesson, at least in the Old Country. 

In the United Kingdom to-day the assistance of women 
is welcomed, and they are doing an increasingly important 
work in many directions. As inspectors in factories, as 
members of boards of guardians, and indeed as members 
of all bodies which are concerned with local government, 
and especially with regard to the management of schools, 
they are taking a more and more prominent position, and 
the community is immensely the better for it. Every- 
thing that pertains to education, to housing, to hospitals, 
to the life of women and children employed in mines and 
factories and shops, to the care of those who have fallen 
in the race of life, whether they have fallen for good — the 
numbers of whom, in a new country like this, should be 
comparatively small — or whether they have only fallen 
temporarily, and can by timely and sensible help be set 
on their feet again — aU these are spheres of work in which 
the co-operation of women is peculiarly valuable. 

I might greatly extend this catalogue, but I am not here 
concerned to give a catalogue of women's opportunities, 
but rather to bring home to you the national aspect, so 
to speak, of them aU. 

I have spoken of the work done by women in the Old 
Country, because it is what I have myself seen and know. 



358 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 3, 

I cannot speak with equal experience of what is being done 
by them in Canada. But of this I am firmly convinced, 
that what is known throughout the Empire as ' the women's 
movement ' can only gain, and may gain immensely, from 
an exchange of experiences, from the women of one part 
of the Empire following the efforts, and learning from the 
successes or the failures, of women in other parts. That 
is one of the chief advantages of the unity of the Empire, 
of what I have spoken of as our common citizenship. We 
have got to evolve between us all a higher type of civilisa- 
tion. People do, in fact, learn more easily from those of 
their own household. We do, in fact, learn more easily 
from the efforts and experiments of men and women in 
other parts of our own Empire, than from what is done or 
attempted in foreign lands. Social experiments in the 
other dominions of the Crown produce an effect in Great 
Britain which is not produced as readily by similar experi- 
ments, say in the United States or in Germany. There 
is a special instance which occurs to me at this moment, 
namely, that in the attempt to deal with the evil of sweat- 
ing in England, we have derived pecuUar instruction from 
what has been attempted with a similar object in Australia. 
And there is a very great deal that we can learn with regard 
to social organisation generally from other parts of the 
Empire also. Nor need the Old Country be ashamed in 
so doing. She is in a good position to repay in other respects 
the debt which she owes to the younger countries. It is 
by mutual knowledge, by mutual help, by learning from 
one another, that we shall preserve in some and develop 
in others the vivifying and inspiring sense of being, despite 
many differences of origin and tradition, one people with 
a great common mission in the world. 



i9o8] CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 359 

THE CANADIAN CLUB, MONTREAL 
November 3, 1908 

Conditions of Closer Union 

This is the last opportunity I shall have, at any rate for 
some time, of addressing a Canadian audience. That 
being the case, I may, perhaps, without appearing too 
egotistical, be permitted to say a few words about my 
personal experiences during this my first journey on the 
American Continent. I shall be sailing from Quebec the 
day after to-morrow, just seven weeks from the time when 
I landed there. In the interval I have visited every pro- 
vince of the Dominion except the Maritime Provinces. 
That is an unfortunate though inevitable omission which 
I hope some day to repair. But it is comparatively easy 
for a traveller from the Old Country to see something of 
the Maritime Provinces in a four or five weeks' trip. In 
this instance, having a greater continuous amount of time 
to spare than I am often Hkely to have, I thought it best 
to make sure of seeing the more distant parts of Canada, 
and so after spending a few days at Quebec, I traversed the 
whole country to the shores of the Pacific, and have now 
spent as much time as remained to me in visiting the 
principal cities of what used to be known as Upper and 
Lower Canada. 

Of course, I am quite aware that hard as I have worked 
to see aU that could be seen in the time at my disposal, 
there is a vast deal more that I have missed. The know- 
ledge I have acquired of Canada is necessarily very limited 
and superficial. There are many places which I longed 
to visit, but could not visit ; and there is no place which 
I have visited where I did not feel the need of more time. 
StiU, with aU its shortcomings, this has been a most in- 
structive as weU as a most delightful journey. It is always 
pleasurable and interesting to see a country for the first 
time. But the pleasure and the interest are greatly en- 
hanced when, as was my case in this instance, one knows 



360 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 3, 

something about it from previous study. And then I 
have enjoyed another great advantage. Wherever I have 
gone I have had friends to take me by the hand and ensure 
my seeing not merely the outside of things, but being 
brought into some real contact with the life and interests 
of my various places of sojourn. In this respect I have 
been most fortunate everywhere, but nowhere more fortu- 
nate than here in Montreal. 

The drawback of my journey, if it has had any draw- 
back — I do not like to complain where I have so much 
more to be grateful for — ^is that I have been asked to make 
so many speeches, and that frequently I could not, without 
discourtesy, refuse to comply. I own that I am rather 
appalled to think how many words I have spoken in public, 
often with most inadequate preparation, during the last 
six weeks. People are too apt to think that because a 
man has spent many years in public life he is necessarily 
a ready speaker. But this is a great mistake. There are 
two kinds of public servants. There are those whose 
primary business is to mould and to guide public opinion. 
They are necessarily always speaking, and may reason- 
ably be expected to attain considerable fluency. But there 
is another class, whose business is to perform certain 
definite pieces of public work. Their duty is in the office 
rather than on the platform ; or it may take them, as 
administrators or diplomatists, to distant parts of the 
earth. For men of this class the rule holds good that 
' if speech is silver, silence is gold.' They are apt to find 
that their business is better done the less they talk about 
it in public. Now, for nine-tenths of my public career 
I have belonged to the latter category, and I must be 
forgiven if I am not much of an adept at speaking. 

But, since on this occasion I am perforce among the 
orators, what is it that I have been attempting to do ? 
Most of my speeches have dealt — ^this was what was asked 
and expected of me — ^with various aspects of what, for 
want of a better word, is called Imperialism. In what 
spirit have I approached that theme ? My object has 



i9o8] CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 361 

certainly not been to lecture the people of Canada or to 
try to convert them to any particular doctrine. It has 
been a much more modest one, namely, to explain my 
own point of view. I am not asking people to agree with 
it, but I do want them to understand it. And I am not 
sure that even now, after all that has been said and written 
on the subject, people do understand the point of view 
of what I may caU an out-and-out Imperialist. Let me, 
therefore, try once more, very briefly and directly, to sum 
it up. 

My point of view is that of a citizen of the Empire, of 
one who, no doubt, recognises a special duty to that portion 
of it in which he happens to reside — ^in my case England — 
as, for the matter of that, he has a special duty to his own 
parish and his own county — ^but whose highest allegiance 
is not to England, or to the United Kingdom, but to the 
great whole, which embraces all the dominions of the 
Crown. That is his country. He does not regard him- 
self as a foreigner in any part of it, however distant, how- 
ever different from the part in which he habitually resides. 
He would consider it to be a great loss and a great wrong 
— ^yes, something altogether wrong and unnatural — if 
events occurred which compelled him so to regard himself. 
It is part of his birthright to be a citizen, to be at home, 
in every quarter of the Empire. Speaking as an English- 
man, if in treading on Canadian soil I had to admit that I 
was treading on foreign soil, I should feel that I had been 
deprived of an inestimable privilege. And I should feel 
precisely the same, if, being a Canadian, I found myself 
a foreigner in any part of the British Empire. For this 
world-wide state, this Empire, belongs just as much to 
every born Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, South 
African, as it does to any Englishman, Irishman, or Scots- 
man. This is, I hold, the only right view of the mutual 
relations of the self-governing states of the Empire, of 
which the United Kingdom itself is one. They are equal 
sharers in a common heritage. That is true Imperialism. 

I know there are difl&culties about grasping this doctrine. 



362 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 3, 

Let us, therefore, try to see just what it means, and also 
what it does not mean. I want to strip this great idea 
of all disguising, all deforming misconceptions. 

We who believe in the unity of the Empire, who desire 
to see it become a more perfect unity, who are in favour 
of every measure and every tendency which makes in that 
direction, are constantly being admonished of the diffi- 
culties and the danger which might arise from different 
parts of the Empire ' interfering with one another's affairs 
or meddling with one another.' But such admonitions 
indicate an entire misunderstanding of our position. The 
complete independence of every self-governing state of 
the Empire in its local affairs is a fundamental principle 
of Imperialism. Nobody dreams in these days of the 
British Parliament making laws for Canada or Australia. 
Such an idea is alien to all thinking men, but it is particu- 
larly repulsive to Imperialists, for they would see in it the 
greatest danger to the very thing which they have so much 
at heart — ^unity of action for common purposes. 

But there is another misconception which seems more 
difficult to eradicate, and that is the idea that Imperialism 
means that the self-governing Dominions, while, no doubt, 
remaining independent in their respective local affairs, 
should be grouped as satellites round the United Kingdom, 
and should, in matters of common interest, all dance to 
the tune set by some Imperial piper at Westminster. Once 
more I say no Imperialist either expects or desires to see 
the Dominions occupying any such subordinate position. 
His notion is that, just in so far as any of the self-govern- 
ing Dominions sees its way to sharing in the responsibilities 
of Empire, it should also share in the direction of Imperial 
policy. And his ultimate ideal is a union in which the 
several states, each entirely independent in its separate 
affairs, should all co-operate for common purposes on the 
basis of absolute unqualified equality of status. 

No doubt the idea of such perfect equality presents 
difficulties to many minds. They see that, however much 
you may talk of equality of status, the different states of 



igoS] CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 363 

the Empire are in actual fact still very unequal in strength 
and resources. The United Kingdom, in particular, still 
is, and must for many years longer continue to be, far 
superior in these respects to any other member of the 
Imperial family. And therefore they fear that it would, 
in fact, drag the others after it, possibly into adventures 
and complications in which they would have no interest 
and from which they greatly desire to be free. And cer- 
tainly that is the last thing which as an Imperialist I either 
contemplate or wish. Moreover, it is the last thing which, 
as a matter of fact, I think at aU likely to happen. In 
my opinion, a common policy, the active participation of 
the Dominions in the councils of the Empire, would be 
much more likely to keep the United Kingdom out of 
unnecessary foreign complications than to involve the 
other states in such complications. An united Empire, 
while enormously strong for purposes of defence, would, 
as it seems to me, be absolutely averse from, I might almost 
say incapable of, a policy of adventure. 

But while I think that the fears to which I have just 
alluded are groundless, I admit that they are, under present 
conditions, with the present great inequality of power 
between the different states of the Empire, not altogether 
unnatural. And therefore it is that, in the interests of 
Imperial unity, though not only for that reason, every 
Imperialist must long to see the greatest possible increase 
in the population, the resources, the strength, the internal 
cohesiveness, the national self-consciousness and self- 
reliance, of the great Dominions of the Crown other than 
the United Kingdom. He must desire this, both for their 
own sakes and as calculated to increase their ability and 
their willingness to enter into a permanent indissoluble 
union with the United Kingdom and with one another. 
For his beUef is that, as the self-governing states grow in 
power, and as their relations with the outside world increase, 
two consequences will follow. On the one hand, they will 
become more conscious of the need of mutual support, 
of the advantage of being, not isolated states, but members 



364 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 3, 

of a world-wide union ; and on the other hand, they will 
be more willing, because they feel themselves more capable, 
to share in the responsibilities and the glory of Empire. 
It is on their strength, not on their weakness, on the grow- 
ing extent and multipHcity of their interests, not on their 
continuing to live isolated lives in their several corners 
of the world, that the Imperialist relies for the impulses 
which wiU bring about closer union. 

That being the case, you will well understand with what 
sympathy and with what hope I, as an Imperialist, con- 
template the present great development, not only of the 
material resources, but of the national spirit of Canada. 
There are those who seem to fear that the growth of a 
Canadian spirit, of Canadian patriotism, wiU be a danger 
to the unity of the Empire. I take precisely the opposite 
view. The last thing I should dream of doing would be 
to run Imperial patriotism against Canadian. I want to 
rest the one upon the other. 

I have heard it said a good many times of late, not by 
Englishmen, but by Canadians, that public life in Canada 
is unattractive because there are no big issues. That 
seems to me an extraordinary view to take. No big 
issues ! The next half -century will determine the ques- 
tion whether Canada is to remain part of the British 
Empire. And the decision rests with Canadians. No 
external compulsion could well be apphed, certainly none 
will be applied, to influence them in it. And their decision 
may involve the fate of the Empire as a whole. In any 
case, it must enormously affect its position and influence 
in the world. Look at the map. Take Canada out of 
the chain that girdles the globe, and you not only diminish 
enormously the size of the King's dominions — I do not 
care so much about mere size — but their continuity and 
capacity of consoHdation, The Empire might remain 
a great Power without Canada. Indeed, the United 
Kingdom alone might and would remain a great Power, 
for greatness is not merely a question of dimensions. 
England by herself was great in the Middle Ages, great 



igoS] NATIONAL PERIL & NATIONAL SERVICE 365 

in the time of Elizabeth, when Scotland was still a separate 
kingdom and no British Empire existed. And the other 
portions of the Empire may become great states in isola- 
tion if the whole splits up. But it would be ludicrous 
to compare any of them, whatever its future development, 
to the undivided whole. That whole is the greatest political 
entity in the world to-day ; properly organised, it must 
be by far the greatest Power. I am not going to beat the 
drum or sing pseans in praise of it. But in all soberness 
and sincerity the British Empire, with all its defects and 
weaknesses, is yet an influence second to none — nay, more 
than that, an influence without an equal, on the side of 
humanity, of civilisation, and of peace. The continuance 
of that great power for good depends largely on the action 
of Canada, of the Canadians of this and the next genera- 
tion. With such a problem confronting them, it is impos- 
sible to commiserate the people of this country, least of all 
those of them who are still young, on the lack of big issues 
in their political life. 

NOTTINGHAM.— April 19, 1909 

National Peril and National Service 

[From a speech delivered at a meeting of the Notts Liberal Unionist 
Association.] 

I HAVE not been kept awake by An Englishman's Home, 
much as I agree with what appear to be the opinions 
of the author. My flesh does not creep at the sight of a 
German waiter. I have no reason to suppose that Germany 
is deliberately meditating an attack upon us. But then 
I don't need any definite shock to make me uneasy. My 
feeHng is not one of habitual security varied by occasional 
frights. It is one of chronic, but, as I think, reasonable 
anxiety. I cannot tell at what time, I do not know in 
what quarter, grave danger may arise to the Empire. I 
doubt whether any man can. All that I know is that, 
if we continue year after year, and decade after decade, 
to run such tremendous risks, to undertake such heavy 



366 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 19, 

obligations express or moral, without knowing how we 
shall discharge them, to conduct so vast a business with 
such an inadequate insurance, we are bound, sooner or 
later, to come to grief. I thought the Boer War had taught 
us that, but the Boer War is apparently forgotten. Some 
improvements have resulted from it, no doubt, notably 
in the training of our Regular Army, though the numbers 
of that Army, as you will remember, have been materially 
reduced. But in the main we are going on on the old lines, 
as if we had had no warning that we were living on the 
edge of a precipice. And what makes that state of things 
more bitter is the conviction that it is totally unnecessary. 
Humanly speaking, it should be possible for us to enjoy 
a position of great security, and one in which scares like 
the present would be wholly unreasonable. The potential 
strength of this Empire is immense, but so also is its un- 
readiness and lack of organisation. And no mere expendi- 
ture of money will put things right. More expenditure 
of money may indeed be necessary, but there may also 
be great waste of money from want of system. And 
nothing can be done in a hurry. What we need is carefully 
to think out our requirements as a whole, and then to set 
about year after year working up to the accepted standard. 
If that were to be the result of the present scare, we 
should have reason to congratulate ourselves on its occur- 
rence. But so far it is difficult to see many signs of a 
comprehensive grasp of the situation on the part of our 
rulers. I fully realise the embarrassment of a Government 
which has to keep on apologising to its supporters for 
having any armaments at all. And I readily admit that 
the Ministry contains men who are thoroughly serious 
about maintaining our present predominance at sea, and 
that these men, for the time being at any rate, have got 
the upper hand. Undoubtedly the prospects of our keep- 
ing up an adequate Navy are brighter for all that has 
recently happened. And that is a great deal to the good, 
provided that we do not concentrate our attention upon 
one particular item because it happens to be fashionable. 



igog] NATIONAL PERIL & NATIONAL SERVICE 367 

to have ' caught on,' to the neglect of other considerations. 
We want our fleet as a whole to be the best in the world, 
not only in material and men, but in respect of the strategy 
and forethought applied to the disposition and the use 
of it. But there is something more than that. You 
must not only look at the Navy as a whole but at National 
Defence as a whole. National Defence is not merely a 
question of fleets, though to a country like ours, an island 
country with great over-sea possessions and a great foreign 
trade, its fleet must always be of primary importance. 
It is not only a question of Sea Power. It may very well 
be in some degree a question of Air Power. It always 
must be, to a great extent, a question of Land Power. 
All these things have to be considered together. You 
may build battleship after battleship, you may go piling 
Pelion upon Ossa in the way of naval expenditure, but 
you wiU never have a satisfactory or a well-balanced 
system of defence until behind your smaU Professional 
Army — ^the whole of which may be wanted thousands of 
miles away, and need to be reinforced when there, as was 
the case in the South African War — you have a force capable 
of taking charge of these islands, and of sending help, 
if necessary, to the men at the front. In other words, 
you must make your Territorial Army a reality, some- 
thing Mke equal, in respect of numbers and training, to 
the work which it may at any time be called upon to 
perform. And I for my part have never concealed my 
conviction that you will not achieve that result on what 
is known as the voluntary system. If it is really the duty 
of every able-bodied man of military age to take his share 
in the defence of his country, as we keep on asseverating, 
why should he not be called upon to discharge it like any 
other recognised civic duty ? Those who are prepared to 
leave the constitution of an adequate Second Line army 
to chance, cannot reaUy believe in its necessity. One 
argument, and to my mind it is the only formidable argu- 
ment, which is brought against those who like myself 
advocate National Service, is that it would cost money — 



368 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 19, 

though the amount that it would cost has been grossly 
exaggerated — and that this money would be better spent 
upon the Navy. But do those, who use that argument, 
consider how greatly the efficiency of the Navy itself 
would be increased by the fact of having a nation behind 
it, which was capable of self-defence on shore ? You may 
strengthen the Navy by increasing its size, but you may 
also strengthen it — ^you may give an increased value to 
whatever number of ships and sailors you have — by reliev- 
ing them of part of the work of National Defence, and 
setting them free to deal more effectively with the rest. 
No doubt the existence of a powerful Navy is and always 
will be our greatest safeguard against invasion. But 
invasion ought to be an unprofitable business in any case. 
The men of this country, who are not sailors, ought surely 
to be in a position to give a good account of any invader, 
and to leave the Navy to strike, wherever it can strike 
most effectually, without the restrictions which the sense 
of our defencelessness at home would, under present cir- 
cumstances, be certain to impose on its mobility. Besides, 
there are things which the Navy, for all its priority in 
importance, cannot do. It is on land that the fate of 
empires is in the last resort decided, and we cannot 
overlook the possibility of being called upon to make 
efforts on land, which would require larger numbers than 
anything short of National Service can give us. 

I know that people are getting rather into the habit 
nowadays of saying that in view of the growth of other 
nations, of the general increase of armaments, and of the 
development of a new spirit of restlessness in parts of our 
own Empire, it will soon be more than we can do to 
maintain our old position, that the weary Titan is no longer 
equal to the burden, and so forth. But just think of the 
vast reserve of power that we possess, if only we choose 
to use it, in the young manhood of this country — which 
we alone among great European nations stiU leave wholly 
or almost wholly untrained to arms. With all that latent 
strength not drawn upon, how can it be said, with sincerity, 



1909] NATIONAL PERIL & NATIONAL SERVICE 369 

that we are at the end of our tether ? Let us be honest 
with ourselves. We may be unwilling to make the effort ; 
we may not think the object of national greatness and 
security worth the trouble of maintaining it ; we may hold 
that it is wicked and un-Christian to keep up, not indeed 
an army, but an adequate one. That seems to be the 
sincere, if somewhat strange, opinion of a good many 
worthy people. But do not let us say that we are unable 
to keep up an adequate army, or that we cannot afford 
it. The money cost in this case is not the chief cost, nor 
would it, in the sum total of our national expenditure, 
be a very great item. The chief cost is that of the per- 
sonal service, which it is the fashion to describe as a sacri- 
fice, but which, kept within reasonable limits, is not a 
sacrifice but a blessing, especially for a population living 
in the conditions in which the majority of the British 
people live to-day. It would supply just that physical 
toughening and discipline which, combined with an 
improved system of popular education, is what we most 
require alike from the point of view of health, of morals, 
and of industrial efficiency. 

But that does not exhaust the list of our undeveloped 
reserves of strength. What of our fellow-citizens across 
the seas ? The events of the last few weeks have once 
more brought home to us the great, and in the long run 
almost incalculable, possibilities which arise from the fact 
of their devotion to our common heritage and traditions. 
It would in any case be a misfortune to have to leave them 
out in any comprehensive scheme of Imperial Defence ; it 
is impossible to leave them out, when they themselves 
come forward and claim to be included in it. This is not 
the first time that they have given practical proof of their 
sense of the solidarity of the Empire. We had very sub- 
stantial proofs of it during the South African War. But 
there is this new element in the present case, and it is an 
element of supreme importance, that this is not merely 
an impulse to give help in a particular emergency. The 
dominant idea of the Dominions, if I interpret it aright^ 

2 a 



370 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 19, 

is to prepare themselves to fill a permanent place, and 
undertake definite responsibilities, in a general scheme. 
It is an idea which has germinated in their own minds, 
but they are looking to us for guidance and counsel in carry- 
ing it out, and these we are bound to give. It is a great 
opportunity, but we must not expect too much to come 
of it at first, or underrate the intricacies of the problem. 
The question is how to direct the precious spirit of Imperial 
co-operation into the right channels. And the true prin- 
ciple, I cannot doubt, is to encourage each Dominion to 
provide in the first place for the defence of its own soil 
and its own shores, and of all Imperial interests there or 
thereabouts, by its own native forces. That is the first 
thing, local seK-dependence : after that, and springing out 
of that, mutual help. 

There may appear at first sight to be great waste of 
power in the multiphcation of separate defensive forces. 
But in the first place, this is inherent in the present con- 
stitution of the Empire, and in the next place, it will lead 
to the maximum of collective strength in the end. Mere 
contributions from the Dominions to the British Army or 
Navy, valuable as they are under existing conditions, 
invaluable as they are as an evidence and expression of 
Imperial patriotism, wiU never take us very far. It is 
a real Imperial Army and Navy, constituted by the com- 
bination of the forces of the several self-governing states, 
forces organised from the outset on a common pattern, 
and controlled ultimately, as I hope, by a common authority 
— ^that is the goal towards which we should continuously 
strive. 

And now I must apologise to you for having dealt thus 
hastily, superficially if you will, with a subject of such 
vast importance and complexity. I cannot tax your 
patience by any fuUer treatment of it to-night, even if I 
had the presumption, which I have not, to speak dog- 
matically on the matter. We are only at the beginning, 
as I hope and believe, of a new and great chapter of Imperial 
development. But let me point out to you, in conclusion, 



1909] NATIONAL PERIL & NATIONAL SERVICE 371 

how intimately it is connected with the question which 
occupies so great a space in our local politics to-day. The 
root idea of the great movement initiated, to his eternal 
honour, by Mr. Chamberlain, the movement for Fiscal 
Reform, is to strengthen the foundations of the British 
Empire. A great State needs great resources. These 
resources depend ultimately upon productive power, upon 
industry. To maintain and develop the industry of the 
peoples of the Empire, whether in these islands or in 
distant parts of the earth, to make them mutually inter- 
dependent and collectively self-supporting, to use British 
muscle, British brains, British capital to build up the 
several British states and dependencies, rather than 
foreign countries — that is the ideal of the Tariff Reformer. 
He does not neglect or undervalue foreign trade, but he 
wants it to supplement home-trade and inter-Imperial 
trade, and not to oust it. There is absolutely the same 
fundamental principle in his policy, whether you look at 
it in its application to the United Kingdom, or to the rest 
of the Empire. Let me just glance at both these sides of 
the case. Some of the opponents of Fiscal Reform have 
been trying to make capital out of the offers of help which 
we are now receiving from the over-sea Dominions. ' You 
see,' they say, ' how loyal they are, and how devoted to 
the Mother Country. It does not need Preference or any 
other sordid bond to attach them more closely to us.' But 
what Tariff Reformer has ever said that he wanted Prefer- 
ence in order to bribe Canada or Australia or New Zealand 
to be loyal to the Empire ? That is a complete and ludi- 
crous misconception of our position. We start from the 
assumption that any great self-governing community of 
British race under the British flag is going to be loyal to 
the Empire. They are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, 
our fellow-citizens, our only sure and constant friends. 
That is precisely why we want to see them increase in 
population and resources, why we want our trade, our 
emigrants, our surplus capital, to go to them rather than 
to foreign countries. Under the Cobdenite system we 



372 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 19. 

have taken no heed to whom they went. Even now the 
Cobdenites only jeer at us, when we regret the investment 
of British capital in foreign rather than in British lands. 
* What does it matter,' they say, ' where it is invested ? 
You get the interest all the same, and the capital is just as 
likely to be spent in buying English goods to whomsoever 
you lend it.' As a matter of fact that is not the case. 
But even if it were, it would not meet our objection. 
Granted that the immediate profit, the immediate trade, 
is the same in either case, the result is not the same. In 
one case it is the development of a foreign country, in the 
other it is the development of part of our own Empire. 
The latter is an additional source of strength to us, the 
former is not. Has Argentina offered to build you a 
battleship ? 

And precisely the same consideration applies, to come 
nearer home, in the encouragement of our own British 
industry. To the Cobdenite trade is just trade. It 
doesn't matter with whom you trade, as long as you make 
a profit out of it. It does not matter from whom you get 
your goods, as long as you get them cheap. And I agree 
that, if the goods are such as British soil cannot reasonably 
grow, or British hands produce, we can, as a rule, afford to 
let a comparison of prices alone decide from whom we buy. 
But it will need a great deal of cheapness — even if it were 
sure to last, which, as we know, it is not always — ^to com- 
pensate me for buying from the foreigner what I used to 
buy from my own countrymen. The foreigner, whom I am 
supporting, is not going to help to defend my country, or 
to pay my taxes. His skiU and ingenuity and capital are 
not going to build up Great Britain or the Empire, but 
some other, and possibly hostile country. Perhaps all 
this would not matter so much if the whole civilised world 
were going in for cosmopolitanism, as the Free Traders of 
the last century expected. But now that it is quite clear 
that development, in this stage of the world's history, is 
going to be on national lines, it matters a great deal. And 
yet, wherever you go in Great Britain, you find instance 



1909] NATIONAL PERIL & NATIONAL SERVICE 373 

after instance in which foreign nations, through their 
deliberate pohcy, and our inaction, have captured trade 
that was formerly ours, and are even supplying us in this 
country with goods that we once made, and are still per- 
fectly capable of making, ourselves. You know much more 
than I do about the trade of Nottingham. But if figures 
are any guide, the industries in which you are so greatly 
interested in this town have felt, like so many others, the 
e£Eect of competing with the foreigner on unequal terms. 
The imports of cotton hosiery into the United Kingdom 
have increased in the last twenty years from £400,000 to 
£1,200,000. Germany alone sends us over £1,000,000. 
During the same period, our exports of cotton hosiery 
have decHned from nearly £1,000,000 to little over £500,000. 
And if, on the other hand, our exports of woollen hosiery 
show a substantial increase, that increase is entirely due 
to the trade with British possessions. These figures are 
remarkable. The exports of wooUen hosiery to foreign 
countries were £302,000 in 1885. They were only £354,000 
in 1907. In the same period the exports to British posses- 
sions had risen from £254,000 to £1,132,000. It was 
during that period, you will remember, that a preference 
was first given to us in colonial markets. The history 
of the lace industry is no less instructive. Here there has 
been a perfectly enormous increase in imports — from little 
over one million pounds to nearly four. There has also 
been a large increase of exports. But those Continental 
countries which pour their lace goods, free of duty, into 
this country, France to the tune of upwards of two millions, 
Germany to the tune of a million and a half, put high and 
prohibitive duties on most kinds of our lace goods when 
exported to them, with the result that, except in a few 
lines, their purchases from us are comparatively incon- 
siderable. And the principal exception is well worth 
pondering. Germany buys from us large quantities of 
plain nets, and they are imported free of duty. But why 
so ? Because they are the raw material of her own industry. 
They have patterns worked upon them in Germany and 



374 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 30, 

are sold back, in many cases, to ourselves. And this sort 
of thing is going on in many other directions. It is no 
use for the Cobdenite to say that nevertheless our trade 
is increasing. Has not the trade of the countries, which 
have succeeded in transferring to themselves so much 
work formerly done by British people, increased in a much 
greater degree ? They have got their share in the general 
expansion of the world's business and part of ours besides. 
And that process will continue until you take the remedy 
into your own hands. 

BATH.— April 30, 1909 

Preparation against War 
[At a meeting of the Bath Conservative Association.] 

A FEW days ago, when speaking at Nottingham, I ventured 
to refer to the lessons, or at any rate what appeared to me 
to be the lessons, to be derived from the spasm of anxiety 
which has lately passed over the country with regard to 
our national security. Because I have ventured to preach 
these doctrines, as I shall always preach them, as long as 
I can get any one to listen to me, I have been taken to task 
by some of our friends in the Radical Press as an unregenerate 
Jingo, a man of war and not of peace, whose reliance is 
on physical force alone, who does not recognise the moral 
or even the material influences — the closer intercourse, the 
commercial, industrial, financial interdependence — which 
make armed conflicts between civilised nations not only 
more ruinous and repulsive, but actually more difficult 
of inception, with every succeeding year. But, strange 
as it may appear to my critics, I am quite as much alive 
to these facts as they are. Only I draw from them a some- 
what different conclusion. Wars between civilised nations 
are much rarer than they used to be, and doubtless they 
are destined to become ever less and less frequent. We 
can all agree in rejoicing at that. And one reason why 
they are less frequent is that the great Continental nations 
are so completely and constantly prepared for them ; that 



1909] PREPARATION AGAINST WAR 375 

they literaUy are ' nations in arms ' fuUy equipped, and 
the consequences of their collision would be so tremendous 
that everybody shrinks from it. But if wars are rarer, 
they are also, when they do occur, much more decisive. 
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when wars 
were more frequent, but were also conducted in a more 
leisurely manner and with less concentrated effort, the 
vanquished in one particular struggle might look forward 
to reversing its results a few years later. But the results 
of our titanic modern struggles may be felt for centuries. 
The consequences of 1870 are present, very present, with 
us to-day. And one thing more. Just because wars are 
so rare and so decisive, because everybody shrinks from 
them, just for that very reason the fighting capacity of 
nations, their relative formidableness, counts more than 
ever — and it always counted a great deal — in the numerous 
international differences which are settled without an 
actual recourse to arms. The presumably weaker is less 
than ever inclined to try conclusions with the presumably 
stronger, when the consequences of defeat are so irre- 
vocable. And so the strong powers mould the destiny of 
the world in peace. But from these simple facts some 
clear conclusions follow. A nation can less than ever 
run the risk of disaster in war, since it will probably never 
have the chance of retrieving it. If, on the other hand, 
it is adequately prepared for war, it will probably never 
have to fight. But such preparation is not therefore use- 
less, nor is its utility limited merely to averting war : on 
the contrary, it is to that, and to that almost alone, that 
any nation owes whatever power it possesses, whether to 
maintain its own rights or to exercise any influence on the 
general course of human affairs. The people who talk of 
guns and ships as being wasted, because they grow obsolete 
without ever having been employed in battle, are blind 
to what is going on all around them, and never more 
visibly than in this year of grace. The time may come, 
it may not even be so very distant, when the nations 
will agree to beat their swords into ploughshares. But 



376 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 30, 

a good deal may have happened in the interval. I own 
that I should like my own country still to be in existence, 
and to count for something in the world, when that happy 
day arrives. 

There is another class of critics, who do not indeed 
question the necessity of great armaments, but think that 
there is a danger of our going beyond our means in that 
direction. They fear that our resources as a nation will 
not bear so great a strain. I think we are still very far 
from the breaking-point in that respect, and even if we 
were nearer it, I would rather be somewhat impoverished 
by insurance than totally ruined by conquest. But to 
some extent I do agree with these critics. It must be 
evident to all of us that, in view of the vast growth of more 
than one foreign Power, the time is coming, though it may 
not come immediately, when the United Kingdom alone 
will be hard put to it to retain its place among the fore- 
most nations of the world. But what is true of the United 
Kingdom alone is not true of the Empire. The British 
Empire as a whole has still the greatest future of any 
Power on earth. But the condition of that greatness is 
organisation, the effective combination of its several com- 
ponent states for purposes of mutual defence. That is 
the biggest problem which confronts the statesmen of 
every part of the Empire to-day. Upon its solution more 
depends than on all other political questions put together. 
It is not only of vital importance to us in these islands, 
it is of vital importance to each and all of the Dominions. 
And if that truth is not yet generally recognised, it is fast 
making its way to recognition. No one can doubt that 
even now the self-governing communities across the sea 
are facing seriously, more seriously than ever before, the 
question of defence, and they are facing it in no merely 
local but in an Imperial spirit. They realise what the 
existence of the Empire means to them. They are proud 
of being members of it. Jealous of their independence, 
rejecting, and rightly rejecting, any idea of subordina- 
tion, they are yet willing and anxious to take their share 



1909] PREPARATION AGAINST WAR 377 

as partners in the maintenance of the common heritage. 
It may be only a small beginning, but, wisely directed, it 
is the beginning of one of the greatest movements in 
history. On the other hand, lacking direction, it may all 
fizzle out, A great responsibility rests upon the states- 
men of this country. It is their part, not by dictation, 
but by wise advice, advice which all the Dominions are 
inviting, to turn these offers of co-operation to the best 
account. We are told that they are considering the ques- 
tion. Yes. But are they considering it seriously ? Do 
they realise that they will be judged in history by their 
success or failure to make good use of this opportunity 
much more than by all their other performances put 
together ? So far their record in such matters has not 
been a good one. They have done nothing but reject every 
proposal which has yet been made to them for drawing 
closer the bonds which unite us to the self-governing states 
of the Empire. To mutual preference, which every one 
of these states has urged upon them, they are vehemently 
opposed. Yet they too profess to be Imperialists after 
their fashion. WeU, then, here is their chance, a splendid 
chance, and very likely their last, of proving that that pro- 
fession is something more than verbiage. But, whatever 
the Government may do or not do, I hope that we Union- 
ists will never again let this question occupy a secondary 
place in our thoughts and efforts. The safety and great- 
ness of our country are the objects dearest to all our hearts. 
Can any man doubt any longer, where that safety and 
greatness must ultimately be sought ? They must be 
sought in the organic unity of the Empire. We can, we 
wiU, sustain the burden of defence, not only of our own 
shores, but of the whole Empire, to the very utmost of 
our power. And we are very far from having made our 
last effort or put forth all our strength. But we cannot 
alter the great physical facts which set a limit to our relative 
power in the long run. We must recognise that in the 
far future the British Empire cannot continue to rest upon 
one central pillar. It will have to rest upon the united 



378 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 30, 

strength of all the self-governing communities under the 
British flag. And that being the case, if it is our first duty 
to husband and develop our own resources, so that we 
may do our share in the common work, we have a second 
duty like unto it, and that is to foster the growth of those 
daughter states, which will some day be as great or greater 
than we, and to keep us all a united family. And we 
Unionists at least are fortunate in this, that we are not 
slaves to any doctrine, which prevents our working to that 
end on lines which commend themselves to all the daughter 
states. They one and all pursue, in principle, the same 
fiscal policy. With many differences of detail, they are 
all convinced of this, that their first duty in fiscal policy, 
as in all policies, is to themselves, their next to the related 
states under the common flag. As long as we stand out, 
that principle is in danger everywhere. If we come in, 
I believe that we can clinch it all round for ever. Do not 
imagine that the idea of preferential treatment of the 
members of the family, of closer relations with them, of 
marking the difference between them and foreign nations, 
is limited to import duties, or indeed to trade relations at 
all. That is simply its first, easiest and most natural 
expression. But the possibilities of development latent 
in that principle are innumerable. Even with regard to 
duties, I do not believe that what the people of Canada 
or Australia or New Zealand care most about is the mere 
money aspect of the question. The man who can see no 
other aspect of the case than that, and who therefore fears 
that the adoption of Preference all round would lead to 
nothing but haggling over the amount of it, does not really 
understand the attitude of our fellow-citizens across the 
seas in this matter. They would value the commercial 
advantage certainly. They are keen business people. 
But what would affect them most would be the practical 
demonstration that we felt towards them as they feel 
towards us, our adherence to what I may call the family 
view of our relations, not the pure hard cash view, in which 
the parties you trade with or who benefit by your trade 



1909] PREPARATION AGAINST WAR 379 

are a matter of complete indifference, and the last farthing 
decides it absolutely either way. I believe that adoption 
by this country of the principle of preferential trade in 
any form would have an immense effect, that it would be 
in the true sense of the word epoch-making. It is only fair 
to remember that the daughter states have not attempted 
to drive any sort of bargain with us. They have given 
what they gave freely. If they have asked us to do like- 
wise, it has always been with the emphatic declaration 
that they believed it to be in our own interest, to be good 
for us as well as for them, good for the Empire all round. 
They have even said, and said many times, ' Do not do it, 
if you think you cannot afford it — ^that it is going to hurt 
you.' WeU, I am here to reiterate for the fiftieth time 
my conviction that Preference is part of a policy which 
is not going to hurt us but to save us. What is more, I 
am convinced that the first step to Imperial Preference 
on any considerable scale, I mean the adoption of a new 
form of tariff in this country, is within measurable dis- 
tance, whether we turn it to account for Imperial pur- 
poses or not. The people of this country are not much 
longer going to look idly on while other nations build up 
their prosperity at our expense, and deliberately transfer 
our industries to their shores with the kind assistance of 
our fiscal system. The change is coming sure enough. 
I am not the least anxious about that. What I am anxious 
about is, whether it will come in time to let us get all the 
good out of it that we ought to get in the direction of 
Imperial development and consolidation. Let me tell you 
this, that something has been lost already by delay. You 
may say to me, ' Why should the Colonies, if, as you say, 
they have given us preference freely, and not in any merely 
bargaining spirit, why should they take it away because 
we do not respond ? ' Well, I should have thought the 
constant want of response might chill even the most spon- 
taneous, the most unselfish affection. But there is more 
to be said about it than that. They may not be able to 
help themselves. Foreign nations, our rivals, are as wide 



380 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 4, 

awake to the bearings of this question as our own Govern- 
ment is asleep, and they are busy by their tariff legislation, 
and by their diplomacy trying to prevent the establish- 
ment of an all-round system of preferential trade within 
the British Empire, in order themselves to make arrange- 
ments with our Colonies such as we refuse to make. They 
are doing it by allurements and they are doing it by pressure. 
It may not be possible for the daughter states, with any 
reasonable regard for their own interests, to resist those 
allm:ements and withstand that pressure, if we look on 
with folded arms as if we had absolutely no interest in the 
matter. And remember, in the Colonies too people are 
not all of one mind. Imperial feeling is strong ; at present 
it is still, as a rule, dominant. But they have their Par- 
ticularists over there also, just as we have our Little 
Englanders. There is, too, in some cases, a large and rapidly 
growing element of their population, who are not bound 
to the Mother Country and the Empire by those ties of 
tradition and sentiment which animate the men of British 
race. You cannot expect it. What answer have the 
British and the Imperial section to these their fellow- 
citizens when they say, ' Your first duty after all is to your 
own country. Consideration for Great Britain is all very 
well, but if the British people do not respond to it, do not 
even care about it, why should we not bestow our favours 
in some quarter where we shall meet with reciprocity, and 
enter into closer relations with people who do care ? ' 
We alone can supply them with an answer, and it is in our 
power even now to make it an absolutely conclusive one. 

BRISTOL.— May 4, 1909 

Eating wp Capital 

[From a speech at a meeting of the Bristol Conservative Association, soon 
after the introduction of the Budget of 1909.] 

I HAVE spent a laborious life, but without accumulating a 
fortune upon which envious eyes can be cast by any tax- 
gatherer. I have no personal interest in the matter, but 



1909] EATING UP CAPITAL 381 

I have, I hope, some slight sense of justice, and I have had 
some twenty years' experience of pubHc finance in different 
parts of the world. And speaking from a purely financial 
point of view, and leaving justice and such considerations out 
of the question, I say that the present raid is going to defeat 
itself. There is a distinct limit to what you can profitably 
get out of wealth by means of direct taxation ; when I say 
profitably, I mean without reducing those very resources 
upon which you intend chiefly to rely, upon which the present 
system of taxation makes it ever more and more necessary 
for you to rely. There is a distinct and unmistakable 
limit to the profitable taxation of wealth. We have been 
dangerously near that limit for a very long time, and with 
the present Budget we are jumping over it altogether. 
Do not suppose that, because wealth often cries out before 
it is hurt, it is therefore impossible to hurt it. These 
extravagant imposts are going to hurt not only wealthy 
people but wealth, the basis of your future taxation. That, 
from the financial point of view, leaving all question of justice 
aside, is a grave consideration. You are going to damage 
property by these recurrent fines, and you are not going to 
give that same property time enough to recover — to grow 
once more to its former amount before you tax it again ; 
you are going to eat up the source of your own future taxa- 
tion ; you are going to spend as income part of what is 
really capital, and that is the most familiar characteristic 
of every rake's progress. Do not let me be told, as we 
Unionists are constantly told, ' Oh yes, you are saying all 
this in the interests of the rich. You want to see all the 
taxation taken off the rich, and the whole burden put upon 
the poor.' Speaking for myself, I never have advocated 
and I never will advocate anything of the kind. I am as 
anxious as any man to see as much got out of the rich 
towards public expenditure as can be got consistently with 
reasonable fairness, and, above all, without diminishing 
realised wealth so as to impair the source of your revenue 
for the future. 



382 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 14, 

LONDON.— May 14, 1909 
The Work of the Industrial Law Committee 
TAt a meeting of the Industrial Law Committee held at 20 Arlington Street 
on the invitation of Lady Salisbury, who presided.] 
I AM in the happy position of feeling that, however feeble 
may be my advocacy of the cause placed before you to-day, 
it can at this stage of the proceedings do no mischief, because 
you have already passed the resolution which I came here 
to support. When I was asked to come here I felt some 
hesitation about agreeing to address the meeting — not from 
any want of sympathy with its objects, but because I 
felt that the advocacy of a cause like this had better be 
left to those who have personal experience of the work, 
which I unfortimately have not myself. But it was repre- 
sented to me that, just because I was an outsider and 
because my own activity has lain in such very different 
directions, I might be of some use in calling the attention 
of the public to what I may caU the national aspect of this 
particular enterprise. It is from that point of view, I 
may say, that it specially appeals to me, and from that 
point of view I should like to say a very few words. As 
regards the work of the Industrial Law Committee, it has 
been put to you in the most impressive and attractive 
manner by Miss Deane and Lord Lytton, and on that side 
of the question I wiU not add one word. But it has been 
my lot lately to speak a good deal, perhaps too much, 
about the question of national strength. I think that we 
must never forget that there are two sides to that matter. 
It has an internal as weU as an external aspect. National 
strength and greatness must ultimately have their roots 
in the health and well-being of the great majority of the 
people. No one who is acquainted with the life of the 
mass of the people in our great cities can fail to recognise 
that the condition of a large number of the poorest and 
most helpless workers — I am not speaking of the idle or 
the criminal or the feckless ; there will always be numbers 
of them, and they will always be wretched — I say the 
condition of the great body of the poorest workers, who 



1909] THE INDUSTRIAL LAW COMMITTEE 383 

nevertheless are genuine workers, whose intention and 
desire is to live honest and decent lives, is in many cases 
such as not only to constitute a great blot on our civilisa- 
tion, but to be a source of weakness, an absolute danger 
to our existence as a nation. Now the laws of this country 
have recognised this fact. Remember that no amount 
of charity, no amount of philanthropy, no amount of kind- 
ness in helping the broken and the down-trodden, can make 
up for neglect to deal with the causes, which are constantly 
leading so many hundreds and thousands to break down. 
It is to sound legislation and administration, insuring 
decent and healthy conditions of life to the great mass 
of the working population ; it is to the prevention of evils 
such as over-crowding, over-long hours of labour, dangerous 
machinery, or starvation wages — it is to the prevention 
of those evils, and not to the mitigation of their conse- 
quences, that we must look for any real improvement 
in the condition of the class of people to whom I am 
referring, whose misery and degradation not only affects 
themselves, but breaks down the class immediately above 
them, and, in fact, is a heavy drag on the whole of our 
society, right up to the highest class. I say that the law 
of our country recognises this. I think Miss Deane spoke 
in terms perhaps rather too depreciatory of the first feeble 
efforts which were made in the direction of social legislation. 
However small the beginnings, we have now got in this 
country, as the result of the efforts of reformers and philan- 
thropists of all classes throughout a century, a great body 
of industrial law, protecting, acting as a bulwark to, the 
health, the comfort, the morals and self-respect of the great 
body of workers in factories and workshops throughout 
the country. Great Britain has taken the lead in this 
matter. Other civilised countries have followed in her 
footsteps, I do not mean to say that in some respects 
they have not surpassed us, because I regret to say that 
that is the case. Still, in the main, we may be proud of 
this great body of industrial law, this immense monument 
of humane, thorough, far-seeing effort in the sphere of social 



384 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [may 14, 

reform. And there is one more thing I should like to say 
about it, and that is that this body of law is not merely a 
mechanical protection. On the contrary, if steadily en- 
forced, it tends, in the course of a very few years, to produce 
a habit and an attitude of mind both among employers and 
employed, which, gradually brings up the less progressive 
and the more backward to the level of the more advanced. 
And thus there arises a general state of public feeling and 
public opinion, which in the course of time makes the com- 
pulsion of the law less and less necessary. But until that 
day is reached, we have got to keep up the steady pressure 
of the law, insuring what I think Miss Deane has well 
described as certain minimum conditions of decent and 
healthy existence. Now where, as in the great organised 
trades, there are powerful unions, they can be trusted 
to look after for themselves the enforcement of the law 
which affords so great a protection to their members. 
And again, where there are wealthy, progressive, and 
enlightened employers, they themselves are anxious to 
maintain those conditions for their work-people, and 
perhaps even better conditions than any that the law 
enforces — to maintain them themselves and to see them 
maintained by others. But there are many cases — hundreds, 
and I fear thousands of cases — where, owing to the fact 
that the workers are poor, helpless, and unorganised, or 
to the fact that the employers, who themselves often have 
a hard struggle to keep their heads above water, are care- 
less and indifferent, or perhaps are driven from their own 
better intentions by the cruel competition of unscrupulous 
neighbours — I say there are hundreds of cases of this kind, 
in which we have to recognise the fact that the law is 
constantly being evaded, and that it cannot be enforced 
without the assistance of some external agency such as 
the Industrial Law Committee provides. Now you have 
heard how that Committee operates and to what objects 
its efforts are directed. Briefly, it has two main objects in 
view. One is to make the weakest, the most helpless and 
the most ignorant of the work-people aware of the rights 



igog] THE INDUSTRIAL LAW COMMITTEE 385 

the law gives them, of the great protection which the law 
affords — to make these things known to them. And the 
other is to encourage people in that position to insist upon 
the rights which the law gives them. And there is no way 
in which that can be done so effectively as the way in which 
it is done by the Indemnity Fund, of which Lord Lytton 
has spoken, the object of which is to protect those workers 
who have the courage and the public spirit to insist on 
their rights, not only for themselves but for their fellow- 
workers — ^to protect them from the consequences of their 
action. Cases, flagrant cases, cases most revolting to our 
sense of justice, are quoted in the reports of the Com- 
mittee, showing how people have been dismissed for insist- 
ing on these rights which the law gives them, or for appeal- 
ing to the protection of the proper authorities in the defence 
of their rights. In cases of that kind the Committee steps 
in with its Indemnity Fund, and it preserves the people 
who have been thus unjustly dismissed, until they find 
other means of employment. And I ought to add, finally, 
that there is one other and very important function of the 
Committee, and that is that they themselves call the 
attention of the proper authorities to cases of hardship 
and oppression and evil conditions of work, which are also 
iUegal, and thereby exercise a very powerful influence in 
getting those iUegal conditions remedied. 

WeU, I have nothing more to say, except that, on the 
broadest national grounds, I wish to give my cordial 
support to this movement. I do not think it is a small 
thing : I think it is a great national service which this 
Committee is performing. I think the enforcement of that 
magnificent body of industrial law, which has been built 
up in this country, is of vital importance to the health and 
well-being of millions of our population, and I should like 
to add, that when we spend so many millions on various 
pubhc objects, when we subscribe I do not know how 
many thousands every year for charitable and religious 
enterprises — some of them, like the conversion of the Jews, 
perhaps rather doubtful investments for £20,000 of money 

2 B 



386 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 24, 

— ^it does seem to me that £81 a year dropping to £76 is 
rather inadequate support for the work of the Industrial 
Law Committee. 

LONDON.— June 24, 1909 

' Communis Patria ' 
[On this date the Compatriots Club entertained Colonel G. T. Denison, 
President of the British Empire League in Canada. Lord Milner was in 
the chair, and in addition to the toast of ' The Guest ' proposed the toast 
of the Club — ' Communis Patria.'] 

There is only one other toast this evening. It is our 
distinctive toast, ' Communis Patria.' I am not going to 
dilate upon it. Time was, when it was necessary to explain 
what we meant by it, when the poHtical conception, which 
the Compatriots exist to reahse, was strange to most 
people, and very imperfectly understood even by the 
limited number who had some sympathy with it. Those 
days are over. Whether men agree with it or not, the idea 
of the wider Fatherland, of the permanent association of 
aU the Britains — not circling as satellites round the Mother 
Country, but coming together again, after they had long 
seemed to be, and in fact had been, drifting apart, drawing 
closer to one another in a new form of political union, 
in which none wiU be before or after other, and which 
will add a fresh type to the constitutions known of man- 
kind, — I say this idea, whether men agree with it or not, 
no longer appears something eccentric, the exclusive 
possession of a few theorists. It has achieved a recognised, 
and indeed a foremost, place among the political objects 
for which men are actually striving. Those who are 
opposed to it can no longer hope to treat it with polite 
disregard as a thing visionary and unpractical. They will 
have openly to admit their hostility to it, and a very un- 
pleasant position that may prove to be for them, especially 
in the younger communities of the British family. For it 
is no longer possible to doubt, as I for one have never 
doubted, that, now that they have realised what it means, 
realised that it involves no threat to their individual 



igog] ' COMMUNIS PATRIA ' 387 

development, no lowering of their status as independent 
and self-controlled communities, the British people of the 
Dominions are quite as enthusiastic about * communis 
patria ' as the people of these islands. It is they who have 
coined the phrase ' loyal to the Empire,' which is a much 
better and truer formula than 'loyal to England' or 'to the 
Mother Country.' For my own part, I have always felt 
that the loyalty we wanted was an all-round loyalty, the 
loyalty of each to aU, of every member to the whole body. 

I say this doctrine no longer needs preaching. It has 
laid hold of the minds and hearts of men in all the self- 
governing states of the Empire. Our difficulties to-day 
are of another kind. We have not got to convert people 
to allegiance to ' communis patria.' The allegiance exists. 
What we have to do is to give effect to the prevalent, the 
general desire of the nations of the Empire to express that 
allegiance in acts, to do something for ' communis patria ' 
besides talking about it. We have to prevent that desire 
from being thwarted by obstacles not in themselves 
formidable, but which it does need some ingenuity, 
some energy, some zeal, to surmount. The statesmen of 
different parts of the Empire have all got their own local 
problems and difficulties, which are very engrossing. Here 
are a new set of questions coming to the front, with which 
they are not equally f amiHar, which are not perhaps specially 
attractive to many of them. They are novel and complex 
questions, and they do not lend themselves to the kind of 
treatment, I mean effective treatment for party purposes, at 
which the rulers of democratic communities are necessarily 
adepts. Under these circumstances it would only be human 
for them to try and give these questions the go-by. And 
that is what is very likely to happen, unless there is such an 
effective pressure of public opinion behind the men at the 
head of affairs, as will compel them to give hard and serious 
thought to the solution of these troublesome new problems. 

We have a very clear issue before us just now, an important 
turning-point in the struggle to get something practical 
done for ' communis patria.' People sometimes ask us, 



388 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. i6, 

* What are these common interests of which you speak ? 
Every great section of the Empire has its own separate 
interests, its own special connections, its own hfe. What 
is there to unite about ? ' Well, I think I could name a 
good many common interests, but there is no need of any 
such academic disquisition. There is at least one common 
interest, to the importance of which people in all parts of 
the Empire are just now intensely alive, and that is the 
command of the sea. Are we going, between us all, to do 
something effective in that direction ? By command of 
the sea, I do not, of course, mean keeping other nations off 
it. The sea is theirs as well as ours. We claim no monopoly 
of the ocean highways. What I do mean is that the united 
British nations should have such power on the sea as to pre- 
vent their ever being cut off from one another, or their great 
mutual trade being subjected to serious interruption. The 
British nations have a very special interest in the sea. It is 
the sea which connects them. The very idea that that vital 
link might by any possibility be severed has startled them all 
into realising their community of interest, their interdepen- 
dence, to an extent to which it has never been realised before. 

POOLE.— November 16, 1909 

Tariff Reform and National Policy 

[From an address to a raeeting of the East Dorset Conservative and 
Unionist Association.] 

I ADMIT to you that I am a free lance in politics. I am not 
advocating Tariff Reform because it is the Unionist policy. 
I am fighting with the Unionists because they are pledged 
to Tariff Reform. And I advocate Tariff Reform because 
I am sincerely convinced that it is in the interests of the 
nation as a whole — ^not of any one class. It is the national 
aspect of that policy which appeals to me, and I had very 
much rather not discuss the question who is going to gain 
most by it, the rich man or the poor. But if I am driven 
to it, if I am forced to answer a question which it seems to 
me invidious to ask, then I say without hesitation that. 



1909] TARIFF REFORM AND NATIONAL POLICY 389 

while every section of the community will in the long run 
benefit by a measure which is calculated to increase the 
prosperity of the nation as a whole, yet, as between class 
and class, it is the working class, whether in town or country, 
who have the most to gain by it. It is they who are most 
directly interested in the increase of employment. And, 
mind you, I am not thinking only of the unemployed. The 
fact of more work being done in this country must no doubt 
give employment to many men who now lack it, but it 
wiU also, by relieving the strain of competition, help those 
who are already employed. Tariff Reform is a national 
question. But if any one insists on splitting up the nation 
and on discussing the subject, not from the broad national 
standpoint, but from that of its effect on this or that class, 
I say it is above aU a workman's question. And, mark my 
words, it is the working classes who are going sooner or 
later to carry it. They may be led astray for a time — 
though I am not at all sure that they will be — ^by the idea 
that there is some easier and quicker way of improving 
their own position than to increase the total income of the 
nation by an increase of its total production. The notion 
that that income is a fixed quantity, and that you can only 
augment the share of one set of people by diminishing 
the share of another set, is a notion which has a strong 
hold on many minds. But it is a very misleading notion 
all the same. I do not deny that it is possible by law, 
by custom, or by combination to increase the workman's 
share in the product of his labour, and in so far as that 
can be done without discouraging capital or driving it 
away, I think it is a good thing and in the interest of the 
community as a whole. But there is a distinct limit to this 
process of increasing the workman's share in any given 
amount of production. To pass that point is to engage 
in a struggle in which, while we are aU fighting like wild 
beasts in a menagerie over our respective shares, we shall 
destroy the very thing we are fighting for. Nothing would 
be so ruinous as a social war, and most ruinous of all to the 
mass of the people. There is a better way than that of 



390 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 24, 

improving their condition, and that is to increase the total 
of our production. The greater that total the larger will 
be the remuneration of the workman, for there is no reason 
whatever to fear that, as home industry advapces, he will 
not get at least as large a proportion of the greater output 
as he did of the smaller. The wage-earning class in our 
day are not powerless serfs. They are quite as strong in 
one way as the owners of accumulated wealth are in another. 
They are perfectly able to see to it that they get their fair 
share of that increase of home production which Tariff 
Reform would bring about. And therefore, when they 
understand the question, as they are fast learning to under- 
stand it, they will be the stoutest of Tariff Reformers. 

HOUSE OF LORDS.— November 24, 1909 
The Budget of 1909 

[On Lord Lansdowne's amendment * that this House is not justified in 
giving its consent to this Bill until it has been submitted to the judgment 
of the country.'] 

The Bill before us is so comprehensive — it contains so 
many measures rolled into one, and it raises so many large 
ulterior questions — that it is not possible for any single 
speaker to deal with more than a very limited portion of 
the case. If I do not refer to many weighty arguments, 
of the broader economic and political kind, which may 
be adduced in support of the motion of the noble Marquis, 
it is not because I do not agree with them. But I think 
I shall show more consideration for the time of the House, 
if I confine myself to matters of which I have had some 
special experience. And I must confess that there is one 
aspect of this BiU which possesses a certain fascination for 
me, that it can hardly be expected to possess for many of 
your Lordships. I am an old tax-gatherer, and in that 
capacity I cannot help feeling a professional interest in 
so huge an engine of taxation. It is fifteen years ago that, 
as head, as I then was, of the Inland Revenue Department, 
I was called upon to assist the Chancellor of the Exchequer 



1909] THE BUDGET OF 1909 391 

in the preparation of a Budget, which at the time was gener- 
ally considered a big undertaking. I refer to Sir William 
Harcourt's ' Death Duty Budget,' as it was commonly 
called, of 1894. It was, I think, the heaviest of the 
eight British Budgets with which I have been intimately 
acquainted from the inside. That Budget was under con- 
sideration for more than a year before its introduction ; 
it was the principal Government measure of the session ; 
it took months to pass, and it strained to the uttermost 
the capacities of the leading officials of my department. 
It also taxed severely the energies of the Government 
draftsman of that day, Sir Henry Jenkyns, a man of excep- 
tional ability, as well as of the Law Officers of the Crown. 
But compared with the present Budget it was a trivial 
affair. And yet I remember that it was severely criticised 
at the time as being complicated and unintelligible. I am 
afraid Finance Bills will always appear in that light to the 
layman. But I venture to say that, whether it deserved 
those criticisms or not, it was a model of simplicity, intel- 
ligibility, and coherence, compared with the measure with 
which we are at present confronted. 

To say that is not to disparage in any way the ability 
of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, or of those who 
assisted him. I think that ability is manifestly very great. 
But he has attempted a great deal more than could be 
done, or at least could be done properly, in any single 
year. I know I may be told that for the immense size 
and unwieldiness of this Budget the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer and the Government are not to blame. The 
severity and the multiplicity of the new imposts — such 
is the argument — are the inevitable consequence of the 
largeness of the deficit, amounting as it does to more 
than sixteen millions ; leaving, even after the raid upon 
the Sinking Fund, some thirteen millions to be raised 
by taxation. But that plea will not hold water for 
one moment. Sums as large, or very nearly as large, 
have more than once in recent times been added to the 
tax revenues of the country in a single year by financial 



392 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 24. 

measures less complex, less controversial, and infinitely 
less meddlesome and harassing than those which we are 
now considering. The difficulties of the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer were undoubtedly great, but he has gone out 
of his way to increase them. It surely is unheard of that 
a Government, which finds itself obliged to increase the 
burden of the tax-payer in one year by the sum of no less 
than thirteen millions, should choose that occasion of all 
others to impose a whole bevy of superfluous taxes, not 
required and, indeed, not available for the needs of the 
year itself. I may be told that it is necessary to look ahead 
a little, that every Chancellor of the Exchequer does to 
some extent consider not only the needs of the present 
year but those of the immediate future. If that is so, what 
was the justification for giving up between three and four 
millions of revenue only last year, at the very time when 
the Government was committing the country to a new 
form of expenditure, which meant at least eight millions 
a year additional for ever ? 

We hear a great deal in this debate from the Ministry 
and their supporters about constitutional precedent. I 
wonder what is the constitutional precedent for their own 
method of dealing with the problem of the aids and supplies 
to be annually granted to His Majesty ? Last year they 
deliberately committed the country to new and vast 
expenditure, for which they refused to provide, while at 
the same time giving up a valuable item of revenue. This 
year they are piling up taxation to meet problematical 
future expenditure. They are putting on taxation for 
objects not yet approved, not yet submitted even to the 
House of Commons, much less to the country, and which 
indeed exist only in a nebulous form in the mind of the 
Government itself. It is these proceedings, my Lords, 
so wholly unusual and abnormal, and fraught with such 
infinite possibilities of abuse, which have driven this House 
to take a course perfectly legitimate, no doubt, but also 
unusual ; a course which I believe there is not one of us 
who does not take with reluctance and regret, but which 



1909] THE BUDGET OF 1909 393 

is certainly less unconstitutional than the action which 
has provoked it. The whole immense fabric of the new 
Land Taxes, with all their costly, compUcated, and, as I 
believe, unworkable provisions, is only estimated to bring 
in a net £50,000 to the Exchequer in the present year. 
Indeed, the two most contentious of these taxes, the tax 
on Unearned Increment — ^sound, I think, in principle, but 
as a local, not a national impost — and the Undeveloped 
Land Tax, which is whoUy bad, are actually going to cost 
more in the present year than they will bring in to the 
Exchequer. But they are not the only taxes now pro- 
posed which have no bearing on supply for the present 
year. There is another item, which will bring nothing in 
at all in 1909-10, but which is estimated to yield £1,370,000 
in 1910-11, and £2,150,000 hereafter. This is the item 
which is euphemistically described in the estimates as 
' the revision ' — ^revision is a good word — ' the revision of 
the Legacy and Succession Duties.' The revision consists 
in raising a rate, which at present is three per cent, to five 
per cent. ; and in sweeping away the exemption accorded 
to lineals and to husbands and wives, who hitherto escaped 
with the payment of Estate Duty only. In my humble 
judgment this revision is the worst feature in the Death 
Duty Clauses, just as these Clauses, as a whole, are one 
of the worst features of the Bill. It is no doubt true that 
it is not this or that provision of the Budget, but it is the 
cumulative effect of its many onslaughts on capital, which 
constitutes so grave a danger to the national prosperity. 
But the Death Duty Clauses would be very bad if they 
stood alone — very bad finance, I mean, quite apart from 
considerations of equity. At the risk of wearying your 
Lordships, I wish to say a few words on this branch of the 
subject, for it is one with which I am specially familiar. 

I am not going to trouble you with particular instances 
of hardship, though I could give innumerable illustra- 
tions. It is not the personal but the national aspect of 
the case, the inevitable consequence of these enormous 
fines upon capital in checking enterprise and diminishing 



394 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 24, 

employment, which cause me solicitude. Do we realise 
the pace of our Rake's Progress in overstraining this par- 
ticular source of public revenue ? In 1894 the revenue 
from Death Duties stood at ten millions. Sir WiUiam 
Harcourt reckoned on an ultimate increase of four millions 
a year, making a total of fourteen millions. As a matter 
of fact, partly because the additional duties were more 
productive than he anticipated, partly because the rates 
were considerably increased two years ago by Mr. Asquith, 
the revenue from Death Duties has risen to nineteen 
millions a year. It is now proposed by a whole series of 
increases, affecting not only large fortunes, but affecting 
in an even higher proportion quite moderate fortmies, to 
add another seven and a half millions to that revenue in 
the next few years. From ten millions a year to upwards 
of twenty-six millions a year in less than twenty years is 
rather a startling advance. But the ominous fact is that 
this spring, from which we are drawing so much more 
freely than ever before, is not itself one of increasing 
abundance. 

The amount of property becoming liable to Estate Duty, 
during the last ten years at any rate, indicates no progress 
whatever. The accumulated wealth of the nation, as far 
as can be judged from these figures, is not at all remark- 
ably progressive ; on the contrary, it is alarmingly stationary. 
Let any one run his eye down the figures of the amount of 
property subject to Estate Duty for the last ten years, as 
they are given on page 48 of the Inland Revenue Report, 
and he will see at a glance that, while the fluctuations 
from year to year are considerable, there is over a number 
of years no decided tendency either upwards or downwards. 
The accumulated wealth of the nation seems to be at some- 
thing like a dead level, surely a very disquieting state of 
things when you consider, on the one hand, the growth of 
population, on the other the immense increase going on 
all the while in the total wealth of the world. If our 
revenue from Death Duties is undergoing this enormous 
increase to which I have just referred, it is not because our 



1909] THE BUDGET OF 1909 395 

capital is increasing, but merely because a very much larger 
proportion of it is being absorbed by the State. That 
process cannot go on much longer without causing an 
actual diminution of the capital. 

My Lords, we are living in a time when the greatest 
conflict of opinion I have ever known exists on all questions 
of public finance. There is hardly a single principle affirmed 
by one body of pundits which is not promptly called in 
question by another. But I will venture to lay down one 
fiscal principle which I believe is still undisputed, and that 
is that, when any source of revenue ceases to show expansion, 
it is bad policy to increase your demands upon it, unless 
there is absolutely no other direction in which you can 
look. Is not such a course, indeed, manifestly suicidal — 
in common parlance, killing the goose which lays the 
golden eggs ? Now there is one great source of revenue 
which we have already abused to such an extent that 
increases of rate no longer produce a proportionate, or 
anything like a proportionate, increase of duty. I refer to 
the Liquor, and especially to the Spirit, Duties. I know that 
the Government now say that, though the enormous addition 
made to the Spirit Duties is not bringing in more than half 
the revenue which it was estimated to bring in, its moral 
excellence more than compensates for its fiscal absurdity. 
But even they cannot say that of the over-taxation of 
capital. Why, not even Mr. Keir Hardie and his friends 
object to capital. They only want to abolish the capitalist. 
The Death Duties are popular with some people because 
they are supposed to transfer wealth from the individual 
to the community. But their effect is not to transfer 
capital, as capital, from the individual to the State, but 
simply to spend it as income. The whole question is 
whether we can afford to spend so much capital in this way. 

My Lords, the answer to that question lies in a nutshell. 
There is a simple test. If these periodic fines levied on 
capital are kept moderate in amount, so that the sum 
taken by the State can, on the average, be replaced by 
accumulation between fine and fine, then they are a con- 



396 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 24, 

venient and justifiable method of raising revenue. But 
if they are so heavy that capital cannot, on the average, 
recover itself between fine and fine, then they are a wasteful 
and, in the long run, a ruinous method of raising it. My 
Lords, looking at the figures to which I have referred, as 
I have looked at them again and again, and speaking as 
a financier and a statistician, if I have any claim to respect 
in either character, I say it is evident that we have already 
reached the extreme limits of what it is possible to achieve 
by this method of taxation without diminishing the object 
taxed, and that the enormous increase now contemplated, 
nearly twice as great as that contemplated by Sir William 
Harcourt fifteen years ago, must inevitably push us over 
the border on to the downward slope which leads to 
impoverishment. 

There is another and a weighty argument for calling a 
halt in the progressive increase of these particular duties. 
It would take me too long to dwell upon it. I will state 
it in a couple of sentences. One reason why in 1894 it 
was justifiable, and even I might say necessary, if our 
taxation was to be properly balanced, to increase the Death 
Duties, was that at that time there was no differentiation, 
under the head of Income Tax, between earned income 
and income derived from property. But it is right, it is 
both equitable and financially sound, that income derived 
from property should be somewhat more heavily taxed 
than earned income. The Death Duties, being in effect 
equivalent to an additional income tax on property, did 
in practice constitute that desirable differentiation. But we 
have now introduced the principle of differentiation into 
the Income Tax itself, and thus we have got the differen- 
tiation twice over. It might be argued that, when the 
Income Tax was thus altered, there was a good case for a 
revision of the Death Duties in a downward direction. 
But so far from doing that, we increased them once more. 
Now we are asked to increase them again to an enormous 
extent. The proceeding is as indefensible in equity as it 
is unsound from the point of view of finance. 



1909] THE BUDGET OF 1909 397 

I have dwelt so long on one point that I cannot pass in 
review the whole series of taxes contained in this measure. 
I think them aU bad, but not all for the same reason. The 
great majority are bad in themselves. But there are some, 
like the additional Income Tax, which are not, in my 
opinion, bad in themselves, but which I should prefer to 
see kept in reserve for great unforeseeable emergencies. 
It is improvident to draw too much on these invaluable 
reserves in normal times. And the worst of it is that all 
these bad taxes are quite unnecessary. It would be per- 
fectly possible, in my opinion, to raise the whole amount 
required by import duties, not only without injury to busi- 
ness and employment, such as this Budget would inflict, 
and as the mere introduction of it has already inflicted, 
but with actual benefit to both. I know we are told it 
would be impossible to raise the necessary revenue by 
these means. All I can say is, I should like to be allowed 
to try. And I hold that, before the country is committed 
to a wrong road in a matter of this vital importance, it is 
entitled to say whether it would not prefer to take the 
right one. I hope we shall be instrumental in giving it 
the opportunity. As for the contention that in doing so 
we are transcending our powers, and that, because for the 
first time in our history we hang up a Finance Bill, we 
shall therefore make a practice of doing so whenever we 
get a Finance Bill we dislike, it seems to me a patent 
absurdity. We have always had this power. We have 
never exercised it. Yet the right to exercise it has always 
been expressly reserved by us. That fact has been admitted 
over and again even by Liberal statesmen, precisely because 
it has been recognised that there might, once in a hundred 
times, be a Finance Bill of so extraordinary and excep- 
tional a character, that we could not be expected to pass 
it without demur. My Lords, that exceptional occasion 
has now arisen. How exceptional it is, is being constantly 
and vehemently impressed upon us by the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer himself. He never ceases to proclaim that 
it is not the immediate financial problem which he cares 



398 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 24, 

about so much as the social revolution which he is initiating. 
If his words mean anjrthing, they mean that he is no friend 
to the private ownership of land. There are those among 
his supporters who are avowedly bent upon making an 
end of the private ownership of all forms of capital whatso- 
ever. If we wish to maintain it, if we believe that the 
nation is averse to the threatened gigantic change, we 
cannot shrink from the conflict which is forced upon us now. 
May I say a very few words in conclusion on the financial 
confusion and loss, which it is alleged will arise from our 
proposed action ? The noble Marquis said that Lord 
Welby had not succeeded in making his flesh creep by his 
gloomy prognostications on that subject. I am not sur- 
prised. Lord Welby is a master of finance, none better, 
but it is beyond even his great powers to make much of 
so poor a case. Why should there be loss ? why should 
there even be confusion in any formidable measure ? It 
seems to be forgotten that aU the terrible consequences 
which it is said will now arise would equally have arisen, 
if the Budget had failed to pass the House of Commons, 
as Budgets have failed to pass it before now, after the 
resolutions on which they were based had been acted upon 
for some considerable time. Is it therefore contended 
that the House of Commons would have no right to reject 
a Budget, after once having accepted the resolutions on 
which it was based ? If so, why have a Finance Bill at 
all ? The resolutions are sufficient. My Lords, what is 
the extent of the possible mischief ? It is said that the 
Income Tax and Tea Duty, as well as the new taxes, cannot 
be collected. But everybody knows that, whoever is in 
power after the election, these two taxes v/ill certainly 
be legaHsed before the end of the financial year. There 
will be an interval of a few weeks, during which their pay- 
ment could not be legally enforced. But why anybody 
should refuse to pay them, even during that interval, when 
he knows he will have to do so sooner or later, I cannot 
imagine. It may be that an attempt will be made to 
clear a large quantity of tea in that interval. As a matter 



igoQ] THE BUDGET OF 1909 399 

of fact, I believe that the tea-dealers would have practical 
difficulties in doing this, because it is the practice of the 
shippers to warehouse the tea for them free for three 
months after arrival. The dealers pay a deposit on the 
tea when they purchase it, but they only pay up the balance 
of the price as they actually take delivery. If they were 
to take delivery of a much larger quantity than usual, they 
would not only be embarrassed by having to put up the 
money a long time before they could recover it by selling, 
but they would be at a loss to find places in which to store 
the tea. No doubt if they could escape the duty altogether, 
they might be tempted to face these inconveniences. But 
as in any case a record would be kept, and the duty 
could subsequently be demanded of them, there does 
not seem sufficient inducement for their taking this unusual 
course. 

But, it may be said, how about the additional duties 
on spirits, on tobacco, and so forth ? My Lords, if this 
measure or a similar one ultimately becomes law, those 
duties will have to be paid, and if it does not become law, 
they will no longer have to be paid, as we contend that 
they ought not to be. But the amount of these duties 
from now to the end of the financial year will in any case 
not be very considerable. And as for the sums already 
paid under these duties, why should they be paid back ? 
The importers have already transferred the burden to the 
consumers, and if the duties were repaid, they would not 
be repaid to the people who had borne the burden, but 
would be a simple present to the importers. As a matter 
of fact, there is a good precedent for not repaying them. 
In 1902, when the Corn Duty was imposed, the duty on 
maize was 5d. in the resolution, but in the Bill it was 
reduced to 2|d. Nevertheless, the di£ference was only 
repaid in those cases in which it could be shown that the 
person paying the duty had not already recovered it from 
some party to whom he had transferred the maize. That 
seems perfectly just, and there is no reason why a similar 
procedure should not be adopted in the present case. I 



400 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 27, 

do not say these things will not involve a certain amount 
of disturbance ; of course they will. I do not say there 
will not be a sKght leakage of revenue. But I do say that 
any such inconvenience and loss will be comparatively so 
trivial, that it cannot be weighed in the balance against 
the considerations of supreme moment, which have been 
adduced in this House in support of the amendment of 
the noble Marquis. With a deep sense of the gravity of 
the occasion, and of the responsibility which rests on 
every member of this House in the present crisis, but with 
a clear conscience and a great faith that our action, and 
the motives which have prompted it, will be fairly judged 
by our fellow-countrymen, I shall give my vote in favour 
of that amendment. 

GLASGOW.— November 26, 1909 

The House of Lords and Duty 

[From an address to a meeting of the West of Scotland Unionist 
Association.] 

As your chairman has told you, I have just come from 
listening for three nights to the debate in the House of 
Lords on Lord Lansdowne's amendment. I do not think 
that even the greatest enemy of that House will say that 
it has not been a striking debate, or that there has been 
any lack of sense on the part of the House of the gravity 
of the question, of the responsibility resting upon every 
member of it, or of the duty they owed to the country. I 
know you will be told that the members of that Assembly 
are animated by personal interest or by party spirit, but I 
do not think that any fair-minded man reading that debate 
will be able to say that the dominant considerations were 
not national considerations. We may be right, or we may 
be wrong, those of us who support Lord Lansdowne's 
amendment ; but whether our judgment is right or wrong, 
our motives, I venture to think, are clear and unassailable. 
There is not one member of the House who is not 
perfectly aware that we could not if we would, and I 



1909] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 401 

think we would not if we could, prevent the carrying out 
of the financial poHcy of the Government if the nation 
really desired it. But we hold that this is a scheme of 
such exceptional magnitude, with such far-reaching con- 
sequences, that, believing these consequences to be evil, we 
cannot make ourselves responsible for the evil which will 
ensue. I respect profoundly the opinion of statesmen 
much my superiors in experience and authority who advise 
the House of Lords, while condemning the proposals of 
the Government, nevertheless to let them pass, perhaps 
with a protest, on the ground that those proposals are so 
mischievous, and that the country will suffer so much under 
them, that there will be a tremendous reaction in favour 
of the Unionist party. I respect that opinion, but I cannot 
follow it. And I do not know how I could with self-respect 
present myself to any assembly of my countrymen saying — 
* I 've let you in for it, but it wiU pay.' 

If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right 
to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn 
the consequences. As I say, all we claim to do is to refer 
the question to the nation. Let the people hear and let 
the people decide. 

STIRLING.— November 27, 1909 
The Budget versus Tariff Reform 

[At the Annual Conference of the National Union of Conservatives for 
Scotland, Lord CUnton presiding.] 

My Lord Chnton, ladies and gentlemen, if the date of 
this meeting had not been fixed months ago, I fear I should 
not have had the honour of addressing you to-night. As 
you all know, there is a debate at present proceeding in 
the House of Lords, at which both Lord Clinton and I 
ought to be present. Important speeches are probably 
at this moment being made by men of eminence on both 
sides of the House, speeches which one can ill afford to 
miss. If it were not for an excuse of pecuHar validity, we 
should neither of us be here on this occasion. 

2 c 



402 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 27, 

I am not going to comment on that debate ; you will no 
doubt read it and judge for yourselves. But there is just 
one point suggested by the debate, but really affecting 
not only the debate but the whole policy of the Govern- 
ment, to which I wish to refer. The Government are fond 
of posing at this juncture in the — ^for them — ^rather un- 
wonted role of defenders of the Constitution. One speaker 
after another on the Government side condemns and 
bewails the breach, not of the law (for they all admit there 
is no breach of the law), but the breach of constitutional 
practice, which Lord Lansdowne's amendment is alleged 
to create. They are indignant ; they are even quite pathetic 
about it. It cuts them to the heart, for the nonce, that 
anybody should be so wicked as even to think of laying 
an impious hand on the sacred ark of the Constitution, 
especially with regard to the respective rights and powers 
of the two Houses. But what is their own policy, I should 
like to know, but a deliberate attempt entirely to upset 
that Constitution and to alter for all time the relative 
position of the two Houses, taking away from the House 
of Lords the powers which it has always possessed, and 
which at this moment it undoubtedly possesses, and which 
it is in the highest interest of the nation that it should 
continue to possess ? And, mind you, that was their 
policy, their policy openly declared and constantly reiterated, 
long before, for years before this action of ours, which they 
condemn as an invasion of the Constitution, was ever 
taken or thought of, long before the circumstances which 
have necessitated it had ever arisen. Lord Lansdowne's 
amendment, which would have the effect of compelling the 
Government to submit their financial proposals to the 
judgment of the country, is alleged by our opponents to 
be unconstitutional. We absolutely deny that, and on 
that I shall have a word to say directly. But the avowed 
pohcy of the Government long before that amendment was 
ever heard of — their avowed policy for the past three years, 
embodied in a resolution of the present majority of the 
Hou.^^e of Commons, proclaimed over and over again by 



igog] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 403 

Liberal speakers, held up only a year ago by the Prime 
Minister as the main object to which his party should 
devote their efforts — is to reduce the constitutional rights 
of the House of Lords ; not any rights which are now in 
dispute, but rights which they themselves acknowledge, 
and which no human being can possibly question — ^to 
reduce these rights almost to nothingness, and indeed 
practically to abohsh them. What are these unquestioned 
and unquestionable rights ? I will take them from a 
statement made in the House the other day by the highest 
authority on the Liberal side, by no less a person than the 
Lord Chancellor himself. He spoke as follows : ' To the 
House of Commons belongs the control over the purse, and 
therefore the control over Ministers of the Crown. To the 
Lords belongs the supreme administration of justice, surely 
of itself a noble attribute, and a full share in all legislation, 
except finance : such is the ancient and famous balance 
of power known to our Constitution, the envy of other 
nations.' Yet for two years before the present crisis arose 
or was ever thought of, it has been a part — indeed a first 
article — of the programme of the Government, to which 
the Lord Chancellor belongs, to take away from the Lords 
their full share in legislation — even legislation having 
nothing to do with finance — and to leave them in a posi- 
tion in which they would have no effective share in legisla- 
tions at all. What has been, and is, the Government 
proposal in this respect ? It is that, when any Bill has 
been passed in two successive sessions by the House of 
Commons — ^the same House of Commons, mind you, with 
no intervening appeal to the country — the House of Lords 
should be bound to accept it and see it passed over their 
heads. What is that but to deprive the Lords not only 
of their fuU share of legislation, but of any share at all 
worth having ? What is it but to destroy ' the ancient 
and famous balance of power,' of which the Lord Chancellor 
spoke, and to knock the bottom out of that Constitution, 
' the envy of foreign nations,' which he reverences so pro- 
foundly ? When the Government and the party, who 



404 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 27, 

have a measure up their sleeve for totally upsetting the 
Constitution, wax eloquent about the wickedness of a 
single infringement of it (though we strenuously deny that 
there is any such infringement), what does it remind you 
of ? It reminds me of a certain person, who shall be name- 
less, rebuking sin. I have always understood that he 
greatly enjoys himself in that role, that he rebukes sin 
and quotes scripture ' like a very learned clerk ' — almost 
as learned as the Lord Chancellor himself — ^with peculiar 
gusto. And that, no doubt, explains the immense fervour 
with which our Radical friends just now, all over the 
country, are proclaiming their devotion to our ancient and 
famous Constitution, while warning us at the same time 
that, if ever they get the chance, they mean to smash it up. 
But now let me say one word on the question, whether 
the proposed action of the Lords really is an infringement of 
the Constitution ? whether we, who always are and always 
ought to be the defenders of the Constitution, are doing 
anything inconsistent with it ? We maintain most 
emphatically that we are not. The powers of the House 
of Commons are enormously greater than those of the 
House of Lords. We do not wish to reduce them. We 
do not dispute the right of the House of Commons to 
control the executive or to exercise the power of the purse, 
as that power has been understood from time immemorial, 
that is to say, the annual control of public expenditure, 
and the determination of the methods by which it is annually 
to be met. But that power rests not on law — in strict law 
the House of Lords has the right to reject any Appropria- 
tion Bill and any Finance Bill. It rests, as the Lord 
Chancellor himself said, on ' custom, usage and conven- 
tion.' But if any one claims rights based on custom, 
usage and convention, he must be careful not himself to 
depart from customary and usual courses. He must 
respect the authority to which he himself appeals, other- 
wise the whole thing breaks down, and all parties are thrown 
back upon their strictly legal rights. The contention of 
Ministers amounts to this, that the submission of the 



igog] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 405 

Appropriation Bill and the Finance Bill to the Lords is 
a mere formality, that it is unconstitutional for the Lords 
to do anything but simply accept them. But it is no mere 
formality. On the contrary, it is absolutely essential, not 
only in order to maintain the rights of the House of Lords, 
but in order to protect the rights of the people. Take 
away the right of the Lords to reject in the last resort even 
financial measures, and there is nothing to prevent the 
Commons indulging in any innovation, any departure from 
ancient and salutary custom with regard to such measures. 
If there is one thing well established in constitutional 
practice, it is that the Commons have no right to oust 
the Lords from participation in any legislation, in which 
they would otherwise be entitled to participate, by simply 
stuffing it into a Bill dealing with financial matters and 
labelling the whole of it ' finance.' It is just as if you were 
to try and escape the duty on the importation of a number 
of bottles of foreign spirit, by packing them in a case con- 
taining six dozen of Apollinaris, and painting the words 
' mineral waters ' on the outside. 

And there is another sound and time-honoured principle, 
which is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget 
should provide for the expenditure of the year — for the 
whole expenditure, with a reasonable margin for con- 
tingencies — ^but that he should not put on taxation un- 
reasonably in excess of present or definite future require- 
ments. This is a principle, to which I think it is impossible 
to attach too great importance, not so much in the interest 
of the House of Lords as in the interest of the taxpayers. 
They have reason to complain if, especially in a year when 
taxation has in any case to be greatly increased to meet 
present requirements, the Chancellor of the Exchequer goes 
out of his way to pile up additional burdens, in order to 
have lots of money to play with in the future. I can 
imagine no course of procedure more likely to lead to 
gross waste, or more oppressive to the taxpayers. They 
have a right to be protected against such an extravagant 
and burdensome innovation. 



406 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 27, 

Now in both these respects the present Finance Bill 
goes beyond * usage, custom and convention.' I will not 
dwell on the fact that it contains matters that it ought not 
to contain, because this point has been so admirably 
explained by Lord Lansdowne and other speakers in the 
debate in the House of Lords, with which most of those 
present are no doubt familiar. I will only refer in passing 
to the absurd excuse which is made for including a Valua- 
tion Bill — and a very bad Valuation Bill at that — a Bill 
which is estimated to cost two milhons, and is certain to 
cost much more, in order to value not something real and 
tangible, but a metaphysical abstraction — ^the excuse, I 
say, for including this monstrosity in the Finance Bill. 
The excuse is that the valuation clauses are necessary to 
make the new land taxes work. Yes, but are the new 
land taxes themselves necessary ? Not only are they not 
necessary, but they are admittedly not going to bring in 
anything in the present year, while the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer himself has not the sUghtest idea how much or 
how little they will ever bring in. Therefore it comes to 
this, that the excuse for putting into a money Bill something 
which has no business to be in a money BiU, is that it is 
necessary for something else which is going to bring in no 
money. Is it not apparent that the whole object of the 
proceeding is to smuggle a new law of valuation, about 
which the House of Lords has every right to be consulted, 
through the House of Lords, in such a manner that the 
House should be debarred from exercising that right ? It 
would be highly dangerous for the House of Lords to let 
itself be circumvented in this way. But what would be 
much more dangerous, not for the House of Lords but 
for the people, would be to allow the practice to spring 
up of imposing, by means of the annual Finance BiU, taxa- 
tion far in excess of present or calculable future require- 
ments. No doubt, whenever new taxation is imposed, it 
is always to be reckoned upon to bring in something more 
in future years than in the year of its imposition. But 
it is one thing to put on taxes required for the year in which 



1909] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 407 

they are put on, which will be still more productive in 
future years, quite another to put on taxes which are not 
required, and indeed wholly unproductive in the year in 
which they are put on, in order to have money to throw 
away hereafter. People generally do not seem to have 
realised how far the Chancellor of the Exchequer has 
carried this odious novelty. In his original estimate (it 
has been somewhat modified since, but not sufficiently to 
affect my argument) the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
reckoned that the twenty different imposts, with which he 
has blessed us, would bring in £14,200,000 this year, and 
that fourteen out of the twenty would bring in £16,955,000 
next year, and £18,480,000 in subsequent years. But 
this is only fourteen out of the twenty. How about the 
remaining six ? The Chancellor of the Exchequer says 
he has not the least idea what they will ultimately bring 
in. Well, as he cannot do the sum for himself, I must try 
to do it for him. I will assume that three out of the six — 
I mean the increased spirit and licence duties — wiU bring 
in no more in future years than he has estimated for the 
present. That is an assumption, unfavourable to my own 
argument, which turns on the excessive amount of taxa- 
tion he is imposing, but an assumption to which I am 
driven by the fact that the taxation of spirits has now been 
so frightfully overdone that this source of revenue is no 
longer progressive, but stagnant. That adds £4,200,000 
to the yield of the new taxes in future years, bringing the 
total up to £22,680,000. And there still remain the new 
land taxes. What am I to say about these ? The Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, in his expansive moods, is apt to conjure 
up glorious — if vague — ^visions of the Golconda, which he 
has discovered for us. A golden haze floats before the 
eyes of his delighted followers, and none of them seem to 
realise that, the bigger the haul he reckons on making, 
the worse his case becomes. Every additional million 
would only help to swell the excess of the burden which 
he is imposing on the country over what he has any earthly 
right to impose. But I am not going to be as hard on the 



408 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [Nov. 27, 

Chancellor of the Exchequer as he is on himself. I am a 
sober old revenue official, and I know very well that these 
taxes are not a gold mine, that they are not going to bring 
in anything at all commensurate with the vast expenditure 
which they will entail to the State and to countless indi- 
viduals, or with the worry and harassment they are going 
to cause. Indeed, they are not, strictly speaking, fiscal 
taxes at all, but political or electioneering taxes, their real 
object being to introduce an entirely new principle into 
our system of public finance, and a peculiarly pernicious 
one — ^the principle, I mean, that people are to be taxed 
not according to the amount of their wealth, but accord- 
ing to the nature of it, and to serve as a text for the vilifi- 
cation of certain classes who are thought to be unpopular. 
They were deemed to be necessary, as they certainly are 
useful, in rallying the discontented left wing of the Govern- 
ment's motley following. But such being their nature, it 
is obviously difficult to estimate them in mere vulgar 
pounds, shillings, and pence. Still, I have got to make 
the attempt, and I dare say I shall not be far wrong in 
putting their ultimate yield at a sum about equivalent to one 
penny of the Income Tax, or, in round figures, rather over 
two and a half millions. That brings up my little bill to 
upwards of twenty -five millions. That is the ultimate 
amount of the additional taxation which this Government, 
who came into office with the cry of economy, are imposing 
on us in a single Budget, and the imposition of one fuU third 
of which has at present nothing to justify it in the way of 
approved expenditure. Who can say, in view of these 
proceedings, that the House of Lords, which has passed 
Finance Bill after Finance Bill without demur, because, 
though not meeting with its approval, they seemed to keep 
within the limits of custom, usage and convention, is not 
now entitled to call a halt ? Who can say that, in dechn- 
ing to give its consent to these new principles and novel 
methods of finance until it is evident that they meet with 
the approval of the nation, it is doing more than it is con- 
stitutionally entitled, or even bound to do. 



1909] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 409 

But, gentlemen, I confess to you, when all is said and 
done, that there are matters at issue in this General Election 
more important than the financial vagaries of the present 
Government, certainly far more important than this 
trumped-up grievance against the House of Lords. You 
have to decide which of two very different roads the nation 
is to follow in the future, for something like five years at 
any rate — ^years which are bound to be critical and may be 
decisive. There is the road which the present Government 
asks you to tread, which combines a great increase of 
direct taxation with an inadequate provision for the defence 
of the country, which does nothing to increase employment 
or the resources of the community, but most unhappily 
threatens to involve us in a struggle — a war of classes, which 
will diminish both. Gentlemen, there is nothing which 
you, as leaders of opinion, as people called upon to afford 
guidance to their fellow-citizens, are more bound at all 
time to impress upon them than this simple truth, ignored 
by demagogues, that the attempt to use taxation in order 
to redistribute wealth will inevitably result in a diminu- 
tion of the wealth that you are trying to distribute. In 
the struggle over the possession of it, the thing being 
struggled for will be, in great part, destroyed. I am not 
a rich man myself — far from it — therefore in what I now 
say, I am speaking without any personal bias. I do not 
believe the wealthier classes of my fellow-countrymen 
will shrink from any burden to be imposed upon them 
for legitimate public objects, provided it be equitable as 
between one rich man and another. They will not shrink 
from additional Income Tax, or Super Tax, or any other 
straightforward impost, which does not, in addition to the 
money it takes out of their pockets, involve them in 
unnecessary expense and a lot of bureaucratic interference 
with their private affairs. But they wiU hate being taxed 
for fads, by novel devices dear to faddists. And they wiU 
not only hate, they wiU resist, attacks made upon their 
wealth, attacks heralded by abuse and calumny, which 
seem to have no better object than that of diminishing 



410 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [nov. 27. 

such wealth. Capital will resist spoliation, and, in the 
last resort, it can always escape it ; not all capital perhaps, 
but that portion without which all the rest would be 
paralysed : I mean movable capital. I say in the last 
resort it can always escape spoliation by going elsewhere, 
going to employ workmen in foreign countries instead of 
here. I don't for a moment accuse the Government of 
wanting to drive capital out of this country, though they 
often use language which shows that they are not alive to 
the seriousness of the danger. But I do say that they are 
in fact so driving it, and that they are embarked on a policy 
which will drive it away more and more. 

That is the one road. Need I tell you what we, on our 
side, believe to be the better way ? The Unionist party 
stand for adequate provision for National Defence, not 
because they love to spend money upon fleets and armies, 
but because they have their eyes open to what is going on 
in the world, and they know that, without such adequate 
provision, all our present heritage, all our hopes of future 
progress, are as a house built upon the sand. But national 
strength depends not only upon fleets and armies. It 
depends on population and resources. There are limits to 
the healthy increase of population in these narrow islands, 
though there are portions of them — and especially perhaps 
Ireland — ^which, with a change in our fiscal policy, might 
support a considerably increased population in health and 
comfort. But there are almost no limits to the vast popula- 
tion in the empty spaces of our Empire. Fill them up with 
men of your race, and keep them one with you, and a 
future of almost unimaginable greatness, of perfect security, 
is yours. But to do that, and at the same time to ensure 
the maximum of work and prosperitj^^ for the people of 
these islands themselves, it is absolutely necessary to make 
a radical change in your fiscal policy, and to make it soon. 
The essence of that change is summed up in the words 
Tariff Reform, not, I beg you to observe, because duties 
on foreign imports, even combined with Imperial Prefer- 
ence and all its beneficial consequences, will alone suffice 



1909] THE BUDGET V. TARIFF REFORM 411 

to achieve our high objects, but because they are not only 
invaluable in themselves, but essential to the success of 
all subsidiary and related measures, because they are the 
foundation and the keystone of a policy aiming directly 
at the increase of our resources at home, and of the pros- 
perity, the strength, and the unity of the whole Empire. 
Our opponents, utterly unable to grasp the meaning or the 
scope of the policy which centres in Tariff Reform, keep on 
harping on this or that difficulty, this or that inconsistency, 
this or that inconvenience which is involved in it. Most 
of these objections are bad. I have answered many of 
them myself over and over again. But some of them are, 
I admit, valid, though they are far from being sufficiently 
weighty to affect the general soundness of our policy. 
But what is that but to admit that we are not quacks, 
that we have not got a nostrum, a panacea, which will 
cure all the ills to which human flesh is heir. It is 
enough for me that we have got a policy which does make 
directly for the increase of employment at home, and for 
closer commercial and other relations between the British 
Dominions throughout the world. It is enough for me 
that we have got a policy which, by increasing our resources, 
wiU give us the means of adopting supplementary measures 
to remove blots in our economic system, which Tariff 
Reform by itself may not sufficiently effect. One thing 
which I have some doubt about, for instance, is whether 
Tariff Reform wiU do as much as I should like it to do for 
agriculture. I doubt whether, say, a five per cent, duty 
on imported food-stuffs coming from other parts of the 
Empire, while it will undoubtedly encourage food-pro- 
duction throughout the Empire, and ultimately make the 
Empire in this vital respect seH-sufficient, with a general level 
of prices lower than we should otherwise see, I say I doubt 
whether it wiU directly or immediately benefit our agricul- 
turists as much as the industrial community wiU be bene- 
fited by a graduated duty on imported manufactures. No 
doubt agriculturists will benefit materially — not from a 
rise in prices (for an immediate rise in prices seems probable 



412 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14, 

in any case, with or without Tariff Reform, and an ultimate 
high level is much less likely with Tariff Reform than 
without it), but from the increased home demand for their 
produce, especially in the case of perishable articles, not 
easily imported from over sea. But their interests have 
been so grossly sacrificed in the past, that I am not satisfied 
that this indirect and limited advantage is all that they 
are entitled to, compared with such great advantages to 
all classes interested in industry, and especially the working 
classes, as any well-devised measure of Tariff Reform would 
undoubtedly ensure. And therefore I think we should 
consider other measures for the good of agriculture as an 
essential part of our programme. You know that the 
Unionist party are pledged to do what they can to increase 
the number of owners. That is in sharp contrast with the 
Radical policy, which turns more and more against any 
increase in the number of owners of land, and more and 
more in favour of the universal ownership of the State. 
But it is one thing to increase the number of owners of land, 
another to enable them to thrive on it. I tell you frankly, 
the State does less to help agriculture in this country than 
in any other with which I am acquainted. I think we must 
turn over a new leaf in this respect, and in turning it over I 
want to be guided not by theoretical considerations, but 
to give help in directions in which it has been demanded for 
years past by practical agriculturists themselves. 

I cannot go further into this subject at the end of a long 
speech. If I revert in conclusion to the Imperial aspect of 
our pohcy, it is because that is the aspect of it — essentially 
inseparable though it may be from all the rest — ^which in a 
General Election is most hkely to be snowed under. But, 
gentlemen, it is not an aspect which the Unionist party 
can ever allow to be obscured or forgotten. Least of all, 
if you will allow me to say so, can Scotch Unionists — or 
indeed Scotsmen generally — afford to forget it. 

Wherever I have gone, in Egypt, in South Africa, in 
Canada, I have found Scotsmen to the fore (out of all 
proportion to the numbers of Scottish people at home as 



1909] THE CHURCH'S WORK ABROAD 413 

compared with the English, Welsh, or Irish) in running 
the Empire which they have done so much to create. If 
any race in these islands has a right to be proud of that 
Empire, and has a deep and abiding interest in it, it is 
the Scottish race. And these Scotsmen in our over-sea 
Dominions, who constitute so great a part of their popula- 
tion, and even a greater proportion of its most thriving, 
most progressive, and most powerful elements, whatever 
may be their opinions on political questions generally 
(and I dare say many of them are pretty Radical and 
democratic), are yet, with comparatively few exceptions. 
Imperialists and Tariff Reformers. They cannot under- 
stand, many of them, how so obviously sound and national 
and patriotic a policy as that of Imperial Preference should 
have come to be a party question at all. And though they 
abstain, and rightly abstain, from doing or saying any- 
thing which might look like interference with our local party 
controversies, there is no doubt they would be heartily 
glad to see that policy win, and to see it raised once for all 
from being the battle-cry of a party to being the accepted 
policy of the nation. 

That is what we have got to do. It is a tremendous long, 
uphill struggle, but we are going to do it. And in that 
struggle I want to see Scotland take the place which, in 
view of the Imperial instincts and achievements of her 
people, of right belongs to her. 



RAMSGATE.— December 14, 1909 

The Churches Work abroad 
[At a missionary meeting presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury.] 

Speaking as a layman, and as one who has spent some of 
the best years of his life in the work of civil administra- 
tion in distant parts of the British Empire and the countries 
connected with that Empire, I think I can take a fairly 
detached view of the work of the Church abroad. Of 
course, as a churchman, my personal sympathy is with 



414 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 14. 

the efforts of the religious body to which I belong, but I 
might say that it is equally with all the other Christian 
agencies which aim at promoting the same great end. But 
as a civil administrator in countries where the vast majority 
of the population was not only not British but not Christian, 
it has been my duty, as it has been the duty of many other 
men in my position, to maintain a neutral attitude, and 
to try as far as lay in my power to maintain even-handed 
justice between men of the most various religious creeds. 
British administration throughout the world ought cer- 
tainly always to be based upon Christian principles, and 
to be animated by Christian ideals, but that is only in 
the broadest sense. As between different rehgious com- 
mimities the British administrator is pledged to perfect 
tolerance and impartiahty. No other attitude, indeed, is 
practicable in an Empire containing hundreds of millions of 
men of races alien to our own, having many various reUgions, 
some of them hardly deserving the name of religion, but 
some also great, ancient and venerable creeds. That 
being the case, it is inevitable that a civil administrator, 
whatever his personal beliefs and predilections are, should, 
in his civil capacity, acquire the habit of judging of all forms 
of religious endeavour by their effects. What interests him 
is their bearing upon the matters with which he is specially 
concerned — such as peace, order, justice, prosperity, social 
progress — ^all those aspects of human well-being which 
are specially committed to his care. . . . And speaking 
only of what has come under my own observation, 
I should like to repudiate an accusation — an accusation 
which is frequently brought against Christian missions, 
and a charge with which many of you may be familiar — 
the charge that the natives are not improved, but are 
more often spoilt, by their conversion to Christianity. It 
is said that native converts are insincere. It is said that 
they become insolent, unruly, indolent, and that they trade 
upon Christianity in order to gain an advantage over their 
fellow-men. I am not prepared to say that this may not 
sometimes be the case in some parts of the world. All I can 



1909] THE CHURCH'S WORK ABROAD 415 

say is, that there is no warrant for this charge in those 
parts of the world with which I am personally acquainted, 
in South Africa especially. Wherever I have gone through- 
out the length and breadth of that great country, I have 
found the influence of Christian Missions an influence for 
the good. I repeat that I am speaking from my purely lay 
point of view. And I defy any one to find — I will not 
say any individual, for that is not a fair test, but any 
community — any district throughout South Africa, in which 
the influence of Christian Missions is not an influence that 
is heartily welcomed by every civil administrator who knows 
his business. 

Black and white have got to live side by side in South 
Africa, that is the great crux of South African society. 
Upon the manner in which the difficulties of contact 
between the black and white races are dealt with by states- 
men, the whole future of the country depends. And that 
policy, again, will be determined by the spirit in which the 
white race, which must be the dominant race, comes 
ultimately to regard the more numerous and dependent 
black race, by which it is everywhere surrounded. Two 
dangers threaten that solution : uninstructed sympathy 
on the one hand, and unchristian selfishness on the other. 
Much harm has been done in the past, and much prejudice 
caused among South African whites, by people in the 
Mother Country — ^good people, animated by excellent in- 
tentions but possessed of inadequate knowledge — who have 
espoused, or seemed to espouse, the cause of the natives 
against the whites. Their objects have been good ; they 
have wanted to help the natives ; but, in fact, they hurt 
them far more than they helped them, by hardening the 
hearts of their white rulers against them. We have learnt 
— it has taken us a long time to learn it — that interference 
from home, whether it is political interference, or the need- 
less, irritating interference of moralising over them, or 
preaching at them, does far more harm than good with the 
South African white. It is from South Africa itself, from 
the men living in the country, men who have identified 



416 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

themselves with it, South Africans by birth, or at any rate by 
residence and sympathy, that the higher appeal must come.^ 



HUDDERSFIELD.— December 17, 1909 

Taxing the Foreigner 

[This speech, and the two immediately following it, were delivered during 
the General Election of 1909-10, which was brought on by the rejection 
of the Budget in the House of Lords.] 

Speaking in Glasgow just three weeks ago, I ventured to 
predict two things. One was that the passing of Lord 
Lansdowne's amendment would be the signal for a 
tremendous outburst of mechanical clamour against the 
House of Lords on the part of the Government and its 
principal partisans, a clamour intended to give the impres- 
sion of widespread popular indignation. I do not say that 
it needed any great intelligence to foresee that. But my 
second prediction was rather bolder. It was that, if we 
only kept our heads cool and did not rush out to fight the 
clamourers on the ground of their own choosing, this 
attempt to give the impression of widespread popular 
indignation would fail. And that is just what has happened. 
It is quite clear by now that aU the outcry comes simply 
from the out-and-out party men who have raised the very 
same outcry a score of times within my own recollection, 
and who spend their lives looking out for any and every 
chance of raising it. Of course the Radicals can get up 
great party meetings against the House of Lords. They 
always could. We know that the existence of that House 
is an inconvenience to the Radical party, and for the Radical 
party man that is, no doubt, a sufiicient reason why it 
should be reduced to impotence. But it would be difficult 
to imagine a more pitiable failure than the demonstra- 
tions which have been intended to show that the man in 
the street, who does not happen to be a sworn adherent 

^ The only existing report breaks off at this point, and the concluding 
portion of the speech is irrecoverable. 



1909] TAXING THE FOREIGNER 417 

of any particular party, is furious with the House of Lords. 
The man in the street remains as cool as a cucumber. 

Why indeed should he be furious ? Because he has been 
given a chance of making himself felt, instead of having 
matters of the greatest moment settled over his head by 
the people who took him in four years ago with their Chinese 
Slavery imposture and their promises of economy and 
retrenchment ? No. The great and famous lions of the 
Radical party, especially the young lions, may go lashing 
their tails and keeping up a continuous roar of minatory 
declamation. They will not do themselves any good by 
it. And the reason is simple enough. Indignation, to be 
contagious, must be sincere. This indignation is too 
obviously pumped up. They cannot really be so very 
indignant with the House of Lords for doing precisely 
what they wanted it to do. Just consider the absurdity 
of their position. The power of the House of Lords — which 
by the way they habitually exaggerate — the power of the 
House of Lords is, according to them, the great curse of 
our poUtical system. It is the one thing which prevents 
this country being the Paradise which they are longing to 
make it. They admit that they have been trying, year 
in year out, to cripple that power and have not known how 
to do it. Now, however, they think they see their chance. 
' At last,' they exclaim, ' we have got you. You have put 
your foot into it this time, and no mistake, and we are 
not going to let you out of the trap until we have made 
you harmless for ever.' Well, but that being the posi- 
tion, why aU this exuberance of wrath ? You cannot be 
honestly furious, even with an enemy, for giving you the 
chance of a lifetime. Either therefore all this rage is 
feigned, or if it is to any extent genuine — and I really 
think they are getting a bit angry, they are so very abusive 
— the reason can only be, that they fear their great manoeuvre 
is not turning out as successful as they expected. And 
there, for once, I agree with them. That manoeuvre con- 
sisted in trying to divert public attention from the con- 
structive policy of the Unionist party, of which the Radicals 

2d 



418 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

are desperately afraid, by conjuring up tlie bogey of an 
aristocratic conspiracy against popular government. But we 
are not going to let them divert it, or to waste our breath, or 
your time, in disproving the existence of a danger in which 
nobody really believes. Popular government in danger 
from the House of Lords ! Who takes that story seri- 
ously ? We may all be fools in the House of Lords, though 
the recent debate hardly proved it, but we are not quite 
such fools as to think that we can by any possibility thwart 
the deliberate will of the nation. I do not believe there is 
one of us who wishes to. I know I do not myself. But, 
anyway, we are all absolutely convinced that even if we 
did wish we could not do it. If there is any body in this 
country, which could by any possibility tyrannise over the 
mass of the people, it is the House of Commons, and that 
only because it would claim, possibly without warrant, 
to represent them. The despotism of a Single Chamber 
elected by the people, but free, when once elected, from 
any effective control, is, I think, a real danger. It could 
not last for ever, but it might last long enough to do irrepar- 
able mischief. But more of that another day. To-night, 
at any rate, I am not going to let myself be drawn into a 
discussion of the constitutional question to the neglect of 
what is at this juncture far more urgent, and that is the 
Trade question, the question of industry, of employment. 
Are we to go on any longer, five years longer, or four years 
longer, or even one year longer, maintaining the handicap 
under which British industry labours, the handicap which 
we ourselves have created, and which it is absolutely in 
our power to remove ? That is the question which by your 
votes next January you have to decide. And it is a very 
vital question. It affects, and affects profoundly, the 
future of this nation, our strength, our security, our capacity 
to bear the burden of those armaments which are necessary 
for our defence. It affects the unity of the Empire. But 
it also affects directly the well-being of countless individuals, 
men and women, and especially of those who have to live 
by th^ labour of their hands, It is^ as I have said before, 



1909] TAXING THE FOREIGNER 419 

a workman's question, the greatest and most pressing of 
all workmen's questions at the present day. It is because 
the financial policy of the Government does nothing to 
remove that handicap, does nothing to assist industry or 
to promote employment, but rather goes out of its way 
to injure both, and because in doing so we believe it runs 
counter to the wish, as it certainly runs counter to the 
interest, of the nation, that we are resolved to challenge it. 

Radical orators go up and down the country saying that 
the opposition to the Budget is due to the desire of the 
rich to escape taxation. It is easy to take in a lot of 
people by assertions of this character, because most of us 
naturally have not got all the figures at our fingers' ends. 
Any one who has can see at once that all this talk about 
this Budget being a poor man's Budget, and the rich being 
opposed to it for that reason, is hopelessly wide of the 
mark. The Budget is a bad Budget because it taxes rich, 
and poor alike in the most clumsy and inequitable way. 
It operates unfairly, as between one poor man and another, 
and as between one rich man and another. But it is the 
method by which it raises the money, alike from rich and 
poor, not the proportion in which the burden is divided 
between rich and poor, which is so objectionable. Cer- 
tainly the last thing I should wish would be to see that 
proportion altered to the disadvantage of the poor. 

But what are the facts ? Of the fourteen millions of 
new revenue, which Mr. Lloyd George set out to raise in the 
present year, some six millions were to come from tobacco, 
beer, and spirits, that is, if we regard the increased licence 
duties as constituting an additional charge on beer and 
spirits. The great bulk of these six millions were bound to 
fall on the mass of the people. Would they have to pay 
more under a Tariff Reform Budget ? They certainly would 
not. The argument that Tariff Reform would be more 
onerous for the mass of the people than the present pro- 
posals will not bear examination for a minute. As against 
these six millions on articles of general consumption, there 
were between seven and eight millions which Mr. Lloyd 



420 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

George proposed to raise by direct taxes on the well-to-do, 
I say it is a libel on the well-to-do to represent the 
enormous amount of opposition, which the Budget has 
aroused, and rightly aroused, as due to a selfish resistance 
on their part to that amount of taxation. The Income 
Tax alone was raised three times, raised in all by upwards 
of fifteen millions a year, during the South African War, 
and the increase was borne without a murmur. The 
wealthier classes of the community recognised that the 
charge was necessary ; they recognised that its distribu- 
tion as between one wealthy man and another was fair, 
and there was absolutely no resistance. But what did 
the Radicals say then ? They said that it was a mistake 
to suppose that if a tax was paid only by the rich, it was 
the rich only who felt it. ' So far as the question of employ- 
ment is concerned ' — I am quoting from the words of an 
electioneering pamphlet emanating from the Liberal Publica- 
tion Department — •' the effect of a tax is the same, whether 
it is paid by rich or poor. If the rich man has to pay an 
extra £50 for Income Tax, he has £50 less to spend on 
multifarious industries. The people he was employing 
are thrown out of work.' And when they said that they 
were quite right. What they said then we say now. We 
do not object to the direct taxation of the rich if it is 
necessary and inevitable, but we do contend that, inas- 
much as it is not only felt by the rich, but by the whole 
community, inasmuch as it does tend to check enterprise 
and lessen employment, we are not justified in increasing 
it as long as there are other means of raising the money 
we require, which will not have the same regrettable con- 
sequences, which so far from diminishing employment in 
this country will actually increase it. 

We may have to put fresh taxation on the wealthier 
classes of the community some day. If more money has 
to be taken out of British pockets, I do not object to its 
coming out of the pockets of those who are, comparatively 
speaking, rich, although, as our opponents themselves 
admit, it is not only the rich who will feel it. My personal 



igog] TAXING THE FOREIGNER 421 

opinion is that the wage-earning class, as a class, already 
pays its fair share towards the expenses of the State, though 
I do not think that as between different sets of wage-earners, 
or different localities, the payment is very justly distri- 
buted. But before we take more out of any British purses, 
light or heavy (and whichever we take it out of there is 
always so much less income left to be divided between us 
all), I say, before we dip further into British purses, let us 
see whether we cannot, by way of a change, get just a little 
contribution out of the foreigner. He makes a very free 
use of the British open market. He pays nothing for the 
upkeep of it. But when we take our goods into his market, 
he makes us pay through the nose. It is true that our 
Radical friends deny, and with quite impolite vehemence — 
calling us ' quacks ' and ' gulls ' and so forth, and making 
up by the strength of their epithets for the poverty of their 
argument — that it is possible to make the foreigner contri- 
bute to our revenue in this way. They assert that all 
import duties must necessarily fall entirely on the consumer. 
But is that the experience of British men of business who 
import into foreign countries ? Are they always able, 
when an import duty is put on, or raised, just to add the 
amount of that duty to the price which they charge their 
foreign customers ? Every man who knows anything 
about business knows that that is not the case. For my 
own part I can hardly take up a paper without reading a 
letter or a speech from some British man of business, show- 
ing how the imposition of a duty upon the goods, which he 
sells abroad, has not resulted in an increase of cost to the 
foreign consumer, but in a loss of profit to him, the import- 
ing British manufacturer. Here for instance is a letter 
in the Morning Post from a gentleman who does a con- 
siderable business with France. ' Mr. Churchill,' he says, 
' not having had a commercial education, or any business 
experience, naturally is unaware that what he describes 
as " a gospel of quacks " is an everyday business proposi- 
tion, which every manufacturer doing a foreign trade has 
to consider.' Then, after describing how the French 



422 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

import duty actually operates in his own case, he concludes, 
' Thus in order to retain my hold on the French market I 
pay the duty.' Now listen to a similar experience, recently 
published in the Birmingham Daily Mail, dealing not with 
France but Germany. ' Some years ago,' says this witness, 
* we exported a certain line of glass goods to Germany, 
doing a fair amount of business at a moderate profit. 
Presently the Germans began to make this line of goods 
for themselves, and put on a five per cent. duty. We were 
able to meet this by cutting down profits, and again when 
the duty was raised to ten per cent, we could just hold 
our own. But when the duty was raised to twenty per 
cent, our position was hopeless, and the whole business 
passed from us to the German manufacturers.' You see 
from these instances how, with moderate import duties, 
the French and the Germans do manage to make us con- 
tribute to their revenue. Why then is it impossible for 
us to make them contribute to ours ? But I have not yet 
done with my last witness. He has something to say on 
another very important point. You know it is a favourite 
argument of our opponents that if an import duty were 
placed on foreign goods imported into this country, and 
competing here with British goods of the same kind, not 
only would the consumer necessarily pay the duty on the 
foreign goods, but the price of the British goods would also 
be enhanced by the amount of the duty. Radical orators 
constantly assume that as self-evident. Not only is it 
not self-evident, but it is not true, I have shown you 
that the consumer does not necessarily pay the duty on the 
foreign goods. Now let me show you why the price of 
the British goods is not always, or even generally, enhanced 
by the amount of the duty. The writer whom I have just 
quoted, gives the reason. ' Did the German manufac- 
turers,' he says, ' raise their prices twenty per cent., the 
equivalent of the duty imposed ? No. They were doubt- 
less " willing and anxious and eager," but it was quite 
impossible to do so, and why ? Simply because the com- 
petition between themselves was quite keen enough to 



1909] TAXING THE FOREIGNER 423 

keep down prices.' The competition among home pro- 
ducers is what is always forgotten, when people assume 
that the duty on the foreign article wiU be added to the 
price of the similar article made at home. It is a very 
pretty theory, but, like so many other fiscal theories, it 
does not square with the facts. Now I could keep you 
here all night quoting evidence on this subject. But I will 
only give you one more illustration, and a very striking one, 
which deals with both the points I am now making. This 
is what the Chairman of one of the biggest British busi- 
nesses, J. and P. Coats, Limited, said to his shareholders 
only the other day : ' Theorists,' he said, ' will tell you 
that it is inevitable that the consumer pays the import 
duties, but that has not been our experience. There are 
many important markets where local manufacturers are 
protected by import duties, and in which we have for 
over twentj'' years had to submit not only to a gradual re- 
duction of turnover, but also to greatly reduced profits, as 
we could not increase our prices by the amount of the duty. 
But it would be a mistake to assume that our competitors 
charged more for their production on account of their 
being protected. In one of the largest of the countries 
referred to, namely Germany, sewing cotton has been 
exceptionally cheap in spite of a duty equalling about 
fifteen per cent, on the cost of the qualities chiefly con- 
sumed.' So you see, it is not as a matter of fact impos- 
sible to make the foreign importer pay the duty, and the 
imposition of a duty does not, as matter of fact, involve 
an increase in the price of the home-made article. On the 
contrary, it may even result in a reduction of the price, 
because the home manufacturers, having now got a larger 
and a surer market, may be able to reduce the cost of their 
product to the consumer and yet make the same profit 
as formerly for themselves. Our Radical friends will 
really have to give up asserting that import duties neces- 
sarily enhance the cost of Hving. That is only true of the 
sort of duties which they themselves have such a particular 
fondness for, I mean duties of enormous amount levied on 



424 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 17, 

a few articles, and by preference on articles which we 
cannot possibly produce at home. But it is not true of 
the duties which we Tariff Reformers advocate, that is to 
say, duties of moderate amount not confined to one or two 
articles, but imposed, as a general rule, on all articles 
which compete in our market with our own products. 

Such duties will not only bring us in revenue, a sub- 
stantial portion of which will be paid by the foreigner, but 
they will have the additional and even greater merit of 
establishing fair play between the foreign and the home 
producer, and wiU tend to keep work in this country which 
at present is being filched away from us. I know I shall 
be told that import duties cannot at one and the same 
time bring in revenue and encourage home production. 
But, as a matter of fact, if import duties are moderate in 
amount, both these results follow. In some cases the 
foreign goods still come in, paying the duty. In other 
cases they no longer come in, or no longer to the same 
extent ; then there is so much more work for the home 
producer. And so much more revenue too, though in this 
case the revenue does not take the shape of import duties, 
but of excise, or increased taxes, or stamps, or rates. In 
one form or another there is an addition to our internal 
public resources, an addition which, though in this instance 
it does not come from the foreigner, is nevertheless taxa- 
tion of the most wholesome and unobjectionable kind. 
It is paid out of wages which, but for the import duties, 
would never have been earned, and out of profits which, 
but for those duties, would never have arisen. And here, 
indeed, I touch a central and vital difference, the deep 
gulf which divides the ideas of us Tariff Reformers from 
those of the Radicals and the present Government. Our 
first concern is with the amount of the national produc- 
tion. Give us more activity of industry, more enterprise, 
more work, and the revenue v/ill increase of itself. You 
will then have less need to harry people with new taxes. 
The Radical idea is that you can only provide for social 
reform, for the good of those who are less well-to-do, by 



1909] TAXING THE FOREIGNER 425 

plundering those who are better-to-do. We do not believe 
that you wiU ever do it in that way. We do believe that 
you can do it in one way, and only in one way ; that is, 
by increasing the total amount of your national output, 
from which the wages of workers, the profits of capitalists, 
and the revenue of the State, are all alike derived. Let 
us look to our production, first of aU here at home, next 
in all the countries over which the British flag flies. Let 
us free ourselves from the insane delusion that a nation 
grows richer by buying outside its own borders what it 
is perfectly able to produce within them. Foreign trade 
is a blessing where, with the excess of our own production, 
we buy things which we need and cannot ourselves pro- 
duce. It is not a blessing where, in the blind worship of 
immediate and often only temporary cheapness, we allow 
our own basic industries to be undermined. That may 
lead to an increase of imports for a time. It may even 
lead to an increase of exports, though that is no advantage, 
but the reverse, if it only means that we are exporting to 
pay the foreigner goods which otherwise would have remained 
here to pay our own fellow-countrymen. There is no 
profitable increase of foreign trade except that which 
results from a positive increase of the total national pro- 
duction, from our buying more because we have more to 
sell. These lessons stare us in the face to-day from every 
corner of the world, from across the North Sea, from across 
the Atlantic. It is the countries, whose first thought has 
been the promotion of their own industries, which are 
challenging, and will soon do more than challenge, our old 
supremacy in foreign trade. Do not let us be deluded by 
the idle fear that reasonable import duties will injure our 
commerce or our shipping. Have they injured those of 
Germany ? Have they even restricted her imports ? It 
is not the tendency of such duties to diminish the imports 
of a country, but to alter their character, to increase the 
proportion of raw material and partly manufactured goods 
imported, while they diminish the proportion of more 
fully finished articles. In other words, they tend to increase 



426 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

the imports which give most employment to the people of 
the importing country. It is that— the increase of home 
employment, and profitable home employment — which is 
one of the two great objects of Tariff Reform. And the other 
great object, though time will not allow me to dwell upon 
it at length to-night, is to strengthen our hold upon the 
markets of the Empire, to find increasing outlets for our 
surplus produce in other countries under the British flag, 
to bind them more closely to us and us to them. Do what 
we wiU to increase our home production, there are an 
enormous number of things which we must obtain from 
outside these islands, himdreds of millions' worth of food 
and of raw material, and in order to be able to buy these 
things we must sell our own goods. But the goods we have 
to sell are being produced by foreign nations also. They 
put up duties against us. They compete with us in every 
market, even in the markets of our own Empire. It is not 
as easy for us as it used to be to find customers for all that 
we must sell in order to be able to buy what we must have. 
Is it nothing to us that, in this fierce and growing competi- 
tion, we still hold a position of vantage, a preference, in 
some of the greatest and most expanding markets in the 
world, some of the markets which have the greatest future ? 
Let us look to it that we maintain, and, if possible, increase 
that preference while there is yet time. The golden oppor- 
tunity will not be ours for ever. The sands are running 
in the hour-glass. Now is the time to strike a blow, a very 
different one from the spiritless and disunited effort of 
1906, to free yourselves from the shackles of an antiquated 
creed, to give fair play to British industry, and at the same 
time to open the door which has been banged and barred 
and bolted against our fellow-countrymen in the Dominions. 
That is a truly great and national policy, and though it can 
only be started by means of a party victory, it needs nothing 
but a fair trial to rally to its support not one party only 
but the vast majority of the nation. 



1909] SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 427 

STOCKPORT.— December 18, 1909 

Single Chamber Government 
[At a meeting of the Stockport Conservative Association.] 

I HOPE we shall have a friendly discussion this afternoon. 
I addressed a meeting considerably larger than this at 
Huddersfield last night, and I am glad to find from my 
experience there that you in the North of England believe 
in free political discussion. No attempt had been made 
to exclude our political opponents from that meeting. They 
were represented there in very considerable numbers, but 
though many of them signified dissent from my views 
in a perfectly legitimate way, there was no attempt to 
prevent my giving free expression to them, as I — and I 
believe the whole of our party — would never attempt by 
disorderly conduct to prevent a fair hearing being given 
to our opponents. I am going to begin with a remark 
which I will frankly confess is not original, but which I 
heard last night at the meeting to which I have referred, 
from a young speaker of the Unionist party, Mr. Boyd 
Carpenter, who, I believe, is a candidate or prospective 
candidate for one of the neighbouring divisions — I think 
Colne Valley. He is one of a body of very able young men 
who, I am glad to think, are the standard-bearers of the 
Unionist cause in many constituencies, and whom I should 
be more than glad to see returned to the House of Commons 
for other than party reasons, because I believe by their 
debating ability, by their knowledge, and by their public 
spirit, they would be a great addition to any legislative 
assembly. 

The remark to which I have just referred was to the 
effect that, if any proof were needed of the necessity of having 
a Second Chamber in this country, it would be afforded by 
the circumstances of this particular election. That puts 
very neatly a point which I think must have forced itself 
during the last few weeks on every thinking man. What 
is the system of a Single Chamber, which is now being 



428 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

preached to us as the perfect expression of democracy — 
the highest development of the ideal of popular govern- 
ment, government by the people for the people ? You 
are to give your vote once every five years, in all the heat 
and turmoil of a General Election, with all the cross- 
currents, all the confused issues by which such an election 
is characterised ; you are to give your vote in a contro- 
versy, in which the issue may be decided by a Chinese 
Slavery lie or an Old Age Pension lie — or some other lie 
which may be still in course of preparation ; and then, 
having done that, you are to part for five years with all 
influence whatever over the destinies of your country. 
You are to give a blank cheque to a majority, possibly an 
accidental majority, possibly a very small majority, or, 
rather, not even that ; you are to give a blank cheque to 
the leaders or the leader of that majority. You know 
perfectly well what party government is. Is it to be sup- 
posed for a moment that the six hundred men, who will be 
elected at this approaching contest, will be free to decide 
the particular questions, which may come before them as 
members of the House of Commons, entirely according to 
their own best judgment on the merits of each particular 
question ? You know well that in fact that is not what 
happens. Some question arises. It is taken into con- 
sideration by the Cabinet. They come to a decision which 
may not even be the decision of the majority, but may be 
forced on them by one or two of their strongest men. The 
measure thus decided on is submitted to the House of 
Commons, where the party has to toe the line, compelled 
to accept the decision of its leaders. How many of the 
men, who voted almost with unanimity for the now sus- 
pended Budget, agreed with all or even most of it ? Many 
of them dissented absolutely from most of its provisions, 
but in the long run party discipline prevailed, and they 
had to vote in accordance with the decision of their leaders. 
That is what you have to think of in connection with 
the effort to establish the Single Chamber system in this 
country. At one election the people would give into the 



1909] SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 429 

hands, not of the majority in the House of Commons, but 
of the particular man or men leading that majority, absolute 
control over the destinies of the country, and whatever 
measures he or they introduced would become law, what- 
ever might be the opinion of the majority of the people 
regarding them when they were actually introduced. That 
would be a tall order at any time, but it is a perfectly 
preposterous order at the present time, when so many 
important issues are raised at once. The present Prime 
Minister — I am glad that his name is well received, for 
he is an old friend of mine, and however much I differ 
from him politically, I recognise his ability and his dis- 
tinguished public services. There is one quality which 
his opponents have never denied him, and that is lucidity 
of statement. I am grateful to him for the clearness with 
which he has told us how he means to interpret victory 
at the coming contest, if he should be fortunate enough 
and the country unfortunate enough to see that result. 
Mr. Asquith tells us very clearly in what sense he would 
interpret a decision of the country in his favour at the 
approaching election. We all know that it would mean 
approval of the Budget, and the nineteen or twenty 
new taxes with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
has blessed this happy land. It also goes without saying 
that Mr. Asquith's victory would mean postponement, 
for the whole period of the coming Parliament, of any 
measure of Tariff Reform. We should have to look on 
for some time longer, while foreign competition gained 
more and more ground even in the markets of our own 
Empire, and while commercial treaties between our own 
Dominions and foreign nations — ^treaties forced upon 
those Dominions because we declined to accept the hand 
they stretched out to us — gradually reduced and possibly 
destroyed that preference which we at present enjoy in 
their great and growing markets. We should be impotent 
in the matter. We should have to look on in impotence 
at the development of that process, as we have had to look 
on in impotence at the making of the treaty between 



430 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8. 

France and Canada, which has akeady injured, though it 
has not destroyed, the valuable preference we enjoy in the 
Canadian market. 

But a far more serious treaty is hanging over our heads, 
and that is a commercial treaty between Canada and 
Germany, and one which would have grave consequences for 
our position in one of the greatest colonial markets. A new 
and formidable impetus would certainly be given to the 
negotiations for such a treaty by the victory of the Liberal 
party at the polls. Let us look at some further conse- 
quences. Mr. Asquith has made it clear that he would 
regard a victory for his party as a decision of the country 
in favour of permanently depriving the House of Lords — 
our only Second Chamber, and he does not propose to 
constitute any other — of anything like an effective check 
on rash legislation. They would be given a perfectly 
useless power of delay, but they would not be allowed 
to retain the power, which is the very power which you 
want a Second Chamber to exercise, of being able to refer 
any question to the nation, in cases in which it appears 
that the majority of the House of Commons is acting 
contrary to the nation's wishes. I was just about to say, 
that Mr. Asquith has also declared that he would regard 
a victory of his party at the polls as a decision of the country 
in favour of the establishment of Home Rule for L?eland 
— that is, in favour of the introduction of a system which 
the people of the United Kingdom have on two separate 
occasions, when that issue, and practically no other issue, 
was before them, decisively rejected — a proposal which, 
unless it were hopelessly mixed up with other issues, has 
not a ghost of a chance of being accepted. The pro- 
gramme which Mr. Asquith announced includes Home 
Rule for Ireland, but it is to be unaccompanied by Home 
Rule for any other part of the United Kingdom. Ireland, 
already grossly over-represented in the House of Commons, 
is to have complete management of her own local affairs, 
but she is stiU to retain that gross over-representation 
in order to manage the local affairs of other parts of the 



1909J SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 431 

United Kingdom — ^the local affairs of England, for instance — 
to decide them possibly contrary to the wish of the people 
of England, possibly contrary to the votes of the majority 
of the representatives of England, in the interests of the 
Radical party. What are the other measures for which 
Mr. Asquith proposes to take the victory of his party at 
the polls as giving him a mandate ? There is the Dis- 
establishment and Disendowment of the Church in Wales 
— a measure of which I will only say that, while it would 
cripple a powerful agency of religious and moral progress, 
it would not be of the smallest benefit to any living human 
being either in Wales or elsewhere ; and that it is a measure 
regarded with complete indifference by the majority of 
the people outside Wales, except in so far as it might be 
welcome to a certain party as paving the way to the Dis- 
establishment and Disendowment of the Church of England . 
Mr. Asquith would also regard his victory as giving him 
a mandate for making an end of Church schools — by which 
particular abortive scheme for making an end of them, out 
of the two or three which his Government has recently 
proposed, he does not tell us ; nor yet whether he intends 
to adopt some totally new scheme — a scheme which, 
for all we know, might involve secular education. The 
onlj'- thing we can be sure of is, that none of the schemes 
which may be proposed by the Government on this sub- 
ject are schemes which can by any possibility have been 
under the consideration of the people of this country at 
this election, or with regard to which their decision on 
this occasion can be regarded as the expression of any 
reasoned judgment or conviction. Again, the Prime Minister 
would regard a victory for his party as giving him a man- 
date to reintroduce our old friend the Licensing Bill. I 
voted for that Bill when it came before the House of Lords, 
because I considered that it contained several useful and 
necessary provisions. I also considered that in some of its 
clauses it inflicted injury and injustice on a legitimate trade, 
and those portions of it I should have done my best, if I 
had had an opportunity, to help to amend. I am not 



432 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

going to discuss the merits of the Bill. All I will say is 
that, in anything like the form in which it was recently 
introduced, it is one of the most unpopular measures with 
the great majority of the people of this country which 
it is possible to conceive ; and it is a measure which, by 
itself, and on its o^vn merits, would never have a ghost 
of a chance of meeting with general approval. Further- 
more, the Prime Minister would regard the victory of his 
party as giving him a mandate to gerrymander our electoral 
system, by removing those anomalies in that system which 
are disadvantageous to the Radical party, such as plural 
voting, and leaving unremedied those anomalies such as 
the unequal distribution of seats, which are advantageous 
to it. 

Finally, he would regard such a victory as giving him a 
mandate for the carrying out of a large programme of 
social reform — ^which may be good or bad, but about which 
we know absolutely nothing. I am very doubtful whether 
the Prime Minister himself has as yet any clear notion 
what he means to propose. But what we do know is that 
that large programme, whatever its merits or demerits, 
is one about which the country cannot possibly be exercis- 
ing any sort of reasoned or considered judgment during 
the forthcoming election. The only thing that is quite 
certain about the Radical programme of social reform is 
that, whatever may be its merits in some respects, it will 
have to contain provisions which are devised to pay for 
the support of the extreme men, sometimes politely called 
Socialists — ^though I think the term is much too good for them 
— ^the extreme men, the land nationalisers, the nationalisers of 
everything, for whose support his leading colleagues — I say 
' leading ' advisedly, for they seem to lead him — ^bid loudly 
in every speech which they make, and without whose 
enthusiastic support it is perfectly well known to every- 
body that the Liberal party would come to hopeless grief 
in the approaching contest. These are the whole packet of 
big momentous issues on which, if you have a Single Chamber 
system, you are going to be supposed by your single vote 



1909] SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 433 

next January to have expressed a conclusive opinion. 
Can any reasonable man say that it is possible to settle 
all these momentous issues off-hand and for good, and all 
in the heat and chaotic controversy of the next six weeks ? 
You are not even going to pretend to settle them. If the 
Radical theory of government is good, what you are going 
to do is not to settle them, but to give the majority, to 
whichever party it may belong — the majority which results 
from the next appeal to the ballot-box — ^power, plenary 
authority to settle them all in whatever way they choose 
out of the dozen ways in which any one of them may be 
settled, without anybody having power to control or revise 
their decision, or to bring it before the country for further 
consideration. It is only necessary to consider these things 
in order to see that the theory of true democratic govern- 
ment, the government of the people by the people, would 
be reduced to an absurdity. 

But there is another aspect of the case to which I want 
briefly to direct your attention. What a vista of turmoil, 
of confusion, of destructive and not constructive activity, 
is presented by the programme which the Prime Minister 
has sketched out, and which is based on the principle of 
keeping together, by mutual accommodation biUs, the bunch 
of minorities constituting what is described as the Liberal 
party ! That party is agreed on nothing except predatory 
taxation and hostility to the House of Lords. Apart from 
those two principles, they are simply so many minorities, 
so many sections, each with a pet measure which it is deter- 
mined to pass. In order to accomplish their various 
objects they are prepared, though very often with wry 
faces, to swallow the pet measures of their associates. 
Not one of these nostrums, not disestablishment, not 
secular education, not the Licensing Bill, certainly not 
the gerrymandering of our electoral system, would com- 
mend itself upon its merits to the people as a whole, and 
yet by this ingenious arrangement the whole lot might be 
forced upon you in the course of a single Parliament. As 
I have said, what a vista of turmoil and confusion such a 



434 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec i8, 

programme opens ! With one exception, not a single item 
in it holds out hope of real benefit to any section of the 
community, hope of removing any of the economic or 
other evils under which we labour. 

In speaking of an exception, I refer to the vaguely adum- 
brated policy of social reform. Social reform is not the 
peculiar possession of any political party. I do not want 
to drag party considerations into the discussion of Social 
Reform, but if you look at the subject historically, the 
Unionist party has as good and, I think, a better record, 
beginning with the factory legislation of the late Lord 
Shaftesbury, than any other party. I admit that good 
measures of social reform, such as the Trade Boards Act 
and the Labour Exchanges scheme, have been introduced 
by the present Government. They have been passed, 
and gladly passed, by that much-abused branch of the 
Legislature to which I belong. Let me say further that 
there are items in the Liberal policy of social reform, as 
vaguely sketched by the Prime Minister and his colleagues, 
with which I entirely sympathise, and which the Unionist 
party, if returned to power, would be bound, just as much 
as their political opponents, to devote attention to. I will 
refer to only one. I am entirely in sympathy with the 
view which, I believe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
first picked up during his recent visit to Germany — that it 
is necessary and desirable to provide, by a system of voluntary 
contributions, with State aid, for insurance not only against 
old age but against accident and sickness and unemploy- 
ment. There is a vast field for measures of social reform, 
a field in which Unionists are prepared, as they always have 
been, to meet the Liberals with open hands, and to co- 
operate with them in forwarding any such measures really 
designed to promote the national interest. But what 
chance have such good measures of social reform in the 
scramble with which we are threatened, the scramble of 
aU these minorities to pass their several pet measures of 
destruction in advance of their feUows ? Social reform, 
it is said, is imperilled by the House of Lords, but some of 



1909] SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 435 

the greatest social reformers who have ever hved in this 
country have belonged to that assembly, and have found 
the most profitable field for their activity there. I defy 
you to show where the House of Lords has stood in the way 
of good social legislation within the course of the last 
Parliament. But I ask you, as men of sense, if we are 
going to plunge into these great and embittered contro- 
versies which the victory of the Liberal party would 
initiate, if we are going to put the whole of our Constitu- 
tion into the melting-pot, if we are going to enter on a 
struggle on questions like Home Rule, on questions like 
the crippling and reducing to impotence of the House of 
Lords, on questions like secular education, the disestablish- 
ment of the Church, and all the rest of these measures 
which fill up the Radical programme, what ghost of a chance 
is there that people will have the time or the temper to 
deal effectively with sound measures of social reform which 
are not of a party character ? 

I want seriously to ask you whether you think that this 
is a time in the history of this nation when it is suitable to 
plunge the country into a whole series of constitutional 
struggles of a most distracting and disorganising kind ? 
That is the last direction in which, under present circum- 
stances, our energies ought to be employed. Let me ask 
you to put aside for a moment all party considerations 
and look at the position. If those who laugh at that remark 
will hear me out, I think they will feel the laugh was un- 
justified. I can assure them that, if they are incapable of 
looking at our national position apart from party considera- 
tions, I do not feel the same difficulty. I have spent a 
great part of my life in the impartial service of the State 
and of ministers of both parties in the State, in the service 
not of one party but of my sovereign and my country, 
and though I am for the time being a party man — and I 
do not pretend that I am not exposed to the temptations 
to which every party man is exposed — I still think that 
my old experience and my old traditions enable me to 
separate party from national considerations. It is in no 



436 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. i8, 

party spirit that I ask you to try, if only for five minutes, 
to look at the position of this nation and Empire as it 
will be seen by the impartial historian of the future, as it 
is seen even to-day by the critical and unbiassed foreign 
observer. The position of the country at this moment 
is a grave position. I do not want to exaggerate ; I have 
never been one of the scaremongers, and I have never repre- 
sented to my fellow-countrymen that we are in danger of 
a sudden, a deliberate, and a dastardly attack on the part 
of some foreign Power, of a foreign Power suddenly spring- 
ing on us without giving us any notice. I have never 
given the slightest encouragement to ideas such as that, 
but I do say we have to look with all seriousness and gravity 
at the position of this country in the world at the present 
time, irrespective of temporary scares, irrespective, perhaps, 
of any particular immediate danger. We ought to look 
at our position in the world in respect to the permanent 
forces that are at work, dangers and difficulties which are not 
confined to a particular season, which are not confined to 
a particular year, but which are always there and which 
are growing. What are the simple facts of the situation ? 
The great position which we have occupied in the world 
for more than a century, the great position won for us by 
the enterprise, the sacrifices, the industry, the courage of 
our forefathers, we still hold, but it is being more and more 
menaced every day. It is menaced in respect of our 
material strength in the matter of armaments ; it is menaced, 
I might almost say it is being undermined, in the field of 
industry and commerce. You all know that the supremacy, 
the undoubted supremacy, which we at one time possessed 
at sea, though it has not gone, is certainly challenged. 
Now that our supremacy at sea is challenged, we can no 
longer regard with our old easy indifference the fact that 
as a land Power we are the weakest of all the great Powers 
of Europe, that we rank as a land Power, if indeed we rank, 
with Belgium or Bulgaria, not with Germany or France, or 
Russia, or even Italy. When people consider our tremendous 
responsibilities, the burden of the defence of our enormous 



1909] SINGLE CHAMBER GOVERNMENT 437 

Empire, these growing responsibilities and this growing 
burden, they are sometimes apt, even though they be good 
patriots, to take rather a hopeless view of the future. 

But the position is not hopeless. It is fuU of promise of 
almost unimaginable greatness and perfect security, but 
only if we are able to bring to the solution of the problem 
not merely the energies and resources of the people of the 
United Kingdom, which are still enormous, though not 
capable of indefinite expansion, but the energies and resources 
of the whole Empire, and especially of the younger nations 
in the Empire, with their boundless opportunities of 
development, in population, industry, and wealth. If 
we can only stand before the world as a union of free 
nations, there is nothing which we need fear. That is the 
greatest question before the people of this country to-day, 
the question of the organisation of the Empire. Com- 
pared with it, all our local controversies — excepting the 
question of maintaining the health, the physical, mental, 
and moral capacity, and the industrial power of the people 
of these islands, which also is of the heart and essence of 
Imperialism — sink into absolute insignificance. But what 
trace of recognition of the importance of this Imperial 
question do you find in the programme or speeches of the 
present holders of power ? None. I am going to make 
a non-party remark. I am afraid I shall never make a 
good partisan. I am not sure that I ought not to be shut 
up during a General Election — but I cannot pretend that 
even the Unionist party has always been penetrated as 
fuUy as I should wish to see it penetrated by the import- 
ance and the urgency of Imperial unity and consolidation. 
But they do, at least, care about it. They do at least 
realise it, though perhaps they only realise it dimly. 

But their inspiring genius, Mr. Chamberlain, realised 
not dimly but clearly, on what road our national salvation 
lies. The Unionist party do include as an essential and a 
foremost part of their constructive policy measures, fiscal 
in the first instance, but in their import and consequences 
far more than fiscal, which are directed not to pulling down 



438 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23. 

but to building up — to laying at any rate the foundation 
of an effective union between the scattered parts of the 
loosely compacted Dominions of our King. The policy of 
the Unionist party is at least a constructive, a remedial, 
a national, and an Imperial policy. Alike for the aims it 
pursues and the evils it is calculated to avert, alike for 
what it promises and what it seeks to resist, it deserves the 
united support of all moderate and patriotic men. 



CARDIFF.— December 23, 1909 
Two Conflicting Policies 

[This speech, which was delivered, at an Election Meeting amid a constant 
fire of interruptions, is reproduced from the best available report.] 

After the deluge of oratory which has swept over the 
country during the last three weeks, I suppose we are all 
looking forward to our Christmas holidays. A week from 
now we shall all be at it again, hammer and tongs, but I do 
not think that very much new matter will be added to the 
controversy. What people have got to do now is to think 
out quietly for themselves the case which is being presented 
to them in every possible light ; the truce of the next few 
days may give them a good opportunity. I am not going 
to attempt to confuse your minds by introducing any new 
features into the discussion to-night. What I propose to 
do is in quite simple language to try and restate the case, 
of course from my own point of view, and to disentangle 
it from the secondary and often wholly irrelevant con- 
siderations which are introduced in order to create 
prejudice. 

What really matters is that the people of this country 
should consider and decide between two conflicting and 
sharply contrasted policies, contrasted in the first instance 
with respect to the question of finance. There are many 
other issues involved, but I suppose nobody will deny that 
it is a sharp conflict of opinion between the financial pro- 
posals of the Government and the first constructive policy 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 439 

of the Unionist party which has brought things to a head. 
A great clamour has been raised against the House of 
Lords for having forced the submission of these questions 
to the choice of the country ; vituperation against the 
House of Lords has become, more than ever before, the 
great staple of Radical oratory ; but if our opponents are 
so sure that their views are yours, why should they be 
angry for having the opportunity given to them of proving 
it ? The more they try to make the election turn upon 
the action and the character of the House of Lords — and 
I am perfectly prepared to defend both — the more they 
import the personal element into the discussion, the clearer 
it will be to every man, that they are not too keen to discuss 
the merits of the case which the House of Lords have 
forced them to put to the arbitrament of the nation. It is 
the policy of the Government which is on its trial. The 
House of Lords have appealed against that policy to the 
people. That being the case, what the Government and 
its supporters have got to do is to defend their policy before 
the jury of the people. It is no use abusing the Peers. 
The more they do that, the more impartial observers will 
be inclined to think that their case is a weak one, and that 
they have no confidence in the justice of their cause. And 
it would be surprising if they had any. The cause they 
have to defend is, in my judgment, anything but an inspirit- 
ing one. They have to defend their own financial measures, 
which are not only bad in themselves but intended to 
block the way to a great and necessary change in our fiscal 
policy, which will do something more than provide us with 
the revenue that we require. 

By that I mean a policy of Tariff Reform. The choice 
is not between one tax and another tax ; it is not merely 
between one set of taxes and another set of taxes. The 
choice lies between a set of taxes, which will only produce 
so much revenue, and a system which will produce that 
revenue and, I believe, will produce more, but of which the 
revenue-producing effect is not the principal or the only 
effect. Tariff Reform, besides the revenue which it would 



440 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

produce — a revenue fully equal at any rate to our present 
needs — ^would stimulate home industries, and would increase 
the national output. It would mean not only more revenue 
for the Exchequer, but more production and more work. 
This is what constitutes the main difference and contrast 
between our policy and the poUcy of the Government. I 
say even if we take their financial measures at the best — 
I do not know why we should treat them with such favour- 
able consideration — ^if we examine each item carefully, we 
find that this collection of taxes with which the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer has favoured us, are no ordinary taxes. 
To prove that, no doubt I should have to deliver a course 
of lectures, and I observe that some of my audience would 
not be much inchned to listen to them. And yet, I am 
not sure that they might not do worse. I have spent 
about fifteen years of my life in pubhc finance. I was for 
four years head of one of the greatest British revenue 
departments ; I served under two Chancellors, one Liberal 
and one Unionist, and I believe I had the complete con- 
fidence of both. I dare say my lectures on the subject 
might be rather dull and tiresome, but I believe they would 
reveal some slight knowledge of these matters — a knowledge 
perhaps even equal to that of the gentlemen who inter- 
rupted me. 

I am going to sum up, without entering into details, my 
objections to these fiscal proposals in one or two sentences ; 
but before I do, perhaps you will allow me to make one 
personal remark. The air is thick with personahties just 
now in Wales — and perhaps you think I have caught the 
contagion. Don't be alarmed ; I am not going to abuse 
anybody, and perhaps you will understand why not, when 
I say that the only person to whom I am going to refer, 
and that but for a moment, is my humble self. It is a 
favourite amusement of our political opponents to represent 
the opposition to the Budget as an interested opposition. 
' It is an interested opposition, an opposition of the wealthy, 
and especially of the landowning class, who want to save 
their pockets.' I have given reasons before now, and I 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 441 

think they are sound reasons, for regarding that as a gross 
libel on my wealthier fellow-countrymen. But if this 
is any other man's motive for opposition to the Budget, 
it certainly is not mine. I am not a man who started 
life possessed of the advantages of birth. I do not despise 
those advantages ; I do not grudge them to any man ; 
I think this country gets good value for its men of hereditary 
wealth. I do not grudge any man those advantages ; 
but at any rate those advantages have not been mine. I 
was not born with a gold spoon in my mouth ; I have not 
got one now. In a long life of unceasing hard work, the best 
of it spent in the service of the State, I have obtained no 
more for myself than just a competence. I can afford to 
snap my fingers in the face of the Budget, except, perhaps, 
at the increased income-tax, which is just the one tax of 
all the twenty I least object to, and yet if any man in the 
House of Lords or in the country is opposed to the Budget 
with absolute conviction, I am the man. I am opposed 
to it, not as an hereditary legislator, which I am not ; I 
am opposed to it, not as a wealthy man, which I am not ; 
but I am opposed to it as a man who has had twenty years' 
experience of public finance. I say it involves this country 
in a vast amount of expense and friction. It has already 
hopelessly deranged one of the greatest of our trades. If 
it has not done that in Cardiff, I know many parts of the 
country where it has. The friction and unsettlement already 
caused by the Budget are entirely out of proportion to 
the amount of revenue we are going to derive from it. 

It is going to hit aU classes dependent on industry, and 
especially the wage-earning classes. Yes, it is going to 
hit them hard in two ways — ^by increased charges on many 
articles of common consumption, and even more seriously 
by checking enterprise and diminishing employment. I 
have quoted before more than once, and I quote again, 
the admission made and the argument used by our political 
opponents, under different circumstances from the pre- 
sent, with regard to the effect of taxes like those which form 
so great a feature of the present Budget proposals, when 



442 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

they said and reiterated, that it was a mistake to suppose 
that, because taxes were paid by the rich, they were only 
felt by the rich. That was the argument of our political 
opponents themselves a few years ago. It is a great 
mistake to suppose — that was their contention — that taxes 
paid by the rich are only felt by the rich. They all 
mean diminution of employment ; many people whom 
the wealthy used to employ are thrown out of work. 
And all these disturbances for what ? I will tell you. It 
is in order to turn away the minds of men from the true 
remedy, or at any rate from what is an essential part of 
the true remedy, for distress, for unemployment, and for 
irregular employment, and that is to do ourselves the work 
we are at present paying foreigners to do for us. Our 
opponents say that goods are paid for by goods. Quite 
true, but that does not mean — ^now, follow this argument — 
either that we pay the foreigner for goods, which we unneces- 
sarily derive from him, by goods made in this country, or 
that, in so far as we do so pay for them, it is any advantage 
to us. The interest on our investments abroad should come 
to us in the form of goods. But what actually happens in 
many cases is, that we pay for the manufactured articles 
which we buy from the foreigner by diverting to foreign 
countries a portion of the goods which represent that 
interest, and which would otherwise come to this country 
to be consumed in this country. And even in so far as 
we pay for these manufactured articles which we buy from 
abroad and which we might produce at home — even in so 
far as we pay for them by goods produced here, that does 
not mean that there is more work done here. Those goods 
would equally have to be paid for if they were pro- 
duced by British hands on British soil, and there would 
then be two sets of British workmen employed instead 
of one. 

A gentleman says to me — ' What about shipping ? ' 
I have shown that the effect of a tariff is generally advan- 
tageous to home industry. If it were true that the effect 
of a tariff is to diminish the imports and exports of 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 443 

a country, it is possible that a single industry — ^the industry 
referred to, I mean the shipping industry — might suffer. 
Even in that case I should say it was a question whether 
the interests of one industry should be set against those 
of the whole industrial community. But I firmly maintain 
that the interests of shipping would not suffer in the least. 
It is not the effect of a tariff to diminish the amount of 
the foreign trade of the country. How can anybody con- 
tend that it is so ? It is contrary to the experience of a 
number of foreign countries and, above all, of Germany. It 
is not the effect of a tariff to diminish the foreign trade of 
a country, but to alter its character. There may, no doubt, 
be a diminution in the importation of manufactured goods 
or partly manufactured goods, but for that very reason 
there is a corresponding increase in the importation of the 
raw material which is needed to make the finished articles 
which the tariff tends to exclude. I do not think our 
friends have gained much by their interruptions about 
shipping. Not that I object to any reasonable inter- 
ruption on this subject, for I am prepared to discuss any 
fair point. 

Let us export our surplus products to pay for something 
which we cannot produce at home, and not for something 
which we can. There are surely enough things which we are 
bound to buy from abroad, and which we have no option 
about whatever — hundreds of millions worth of food and of 
raw materials which are necessary for our own industries. 
Let us keep our surplus products to pay for these things, 
and not sweU the balance against us by importing goods 
which we can make at home. And even if we do choose 
to import a certain number of goods which we could produce 
in this country — and I fuUy admit that under any fiscal 
system we shall do so to some extent — even if such 
goods continue to be imported, why should we especially 
encourage that practice ? If a foreigner wants to come 
into our markets he might at least pay a market toll. He 
might at least pay something for the upkeep of them. It 
costs enough, in all conscience, to keep up the great em- 



444 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

porium of this country for the traders of all the world. 
Why should British sellers be the only sellers in the market 
who have to pay anything to maintain it ? Now, are these 
the arguments of a rich man seeking to escape taxation ? 
They are the arguments of a man trying to open the eyes 
of his fellow-countrymen — and especially of his wage- 
earning fellow-countrymen who are most interested in 
this question — to the direction in which their true interest 
lies. People's eyes are being opened. These facts about 
trade and industry are becoming more generally realised 
every day. The people are beginning to see through the 
sophistries and abstract propositions which the experi- 
ence of every coimtry in the world that has ever adopted 
a tariff, which the experience of our own Dominions, has 
exploded — those abstract propositions by which they were 
formerly befoozled — and that is the reason which has led to 
the financial proposals of the Government. 

I do not deny — and I am sure this will be a welcome 
remark to some of my audience who do not agree with me 
— I do not deny that the effect of the Budget proposals, 
for a time at any rate, is to give a certain advantage to 
the Government. A year or so ago, when elections were 
being fought on the Tariff Reform issue alone, the Govern- 
ment could not retain a single seat. Therefore it was 
highly necessary to introduce something which would divert 
public attention from the consideration of this question of 
Tariff Reform, which was proving so fatal to the Govern- 
ment. And I fully admit that the discussion of the 
financial proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
achieved that object for a time. I think the effect is 
beginning to wear off a little, for the Budget was not 
apparently of much use at Bermondsey. Indeed the 
Government do not seem to have much confidence even at 
Portsmouth, otherwise there would not have been an unac- 
countable delay in the issue of a writ for that constituency. 
The taxes with which the Government propose to oppress 
us are bad in various degrees ; in one respect they are all 
bad, because they are aU, at present at any rate, wholly 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 445 

unnecessary. You could raise the same amount of money 
by moderate import duties. You could raise the same 
amount of money by a tax on foreign manufactured articles 
imported into this country, not only without loss to the 
people of this country, but with absolute advantage to 
them. I know perfectly well that people are going about 
the country making fantastic calculations as to the amount 
which would be derived, or which would not be derived, 
from a duty on foreign imported articles. I am not going 
to-night — ^for I may have another occasion of doing so — ■ 
to pursue in detail the question of the yield of this or that 
particular duty, but I would just ask you to consider this, 
for a pound of fact is worth a bushel of theory. If it is 
possible for the Germans to raise seven millions by taxes 
on imported articles, which are just half the amount of 
the manufactures imported into this country, I would ask 
any arithmetician to tell me why there is a practical impos- 
sibility of our raising fourteen millions. I say, therefore, 
the Budget taxes are bad because they are unnecessary. 
Some of them may not be so bad in themselves — ^taxes 
such as the increased Income Tax, and, if you like, the 
Super -Tax — they may not be so bad in themselves, and we 
may some day have recourse to them. But they are not 
going to run away ; they will be there for us to have recourse 
to if necessary, and not only will they be there, but they 
will be much more productive, if in the interval we adopt 
a fiscal system which will increase the resources of the 
country, out of which alone all internal taxation must come. 
Indeed it is evident that the Budget, which was intended 
to oust Tariff Reform, is not now relied upon by its own 
authors as alone sufficient to effect that object. They 
have got to hold out other and more sinister inducements 
in order to get the necessary majority together. They 
have capitulated to the Irish Separatists ; they are walking 
shoulder to shoulder with men who are not only hostile 
to all property, but are what is even worse — hostile to all 
forms of National Defence. I do not say that all supporters 
of the Government are hostile to National Defence, but I 



446 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

say the Government are walking shoulder to shoulder with 
the men who are. I repeat, that whatever may be the 
opinions of many supporters of the Government, the 
Government party as a whole is accepting and welcoming 
the alliance of men who have denounced all forms of National 
Defence. I will not say anything with regard to those 
minor sops, which are thrown out in order to capture first 
one and then another section of what the Government 
hope will be their supporters — the promised fresh attack 
upon the Church schools and the settlement of 1902, which 
I believe has worked perfectly well ; the fresh attack upon 
the licensed trade ; nor am I going to dwell upon the 
attempt, the barefaced attempt, which is to be made to 
alter the electoral system of this country in the exclusive 
interests of the Radical party. We hear a great deal 
about ' One man, one vote,' the alleged injustice of a man 
having votes in different places. We do not hear so much 
about ' One vote, one value,' the injustice of giving five 
Irish constituencies with about 4000 voters each at the 
outside as much power as the city of Cardiff with 20,000. 
Certainly one of the most objectionable features of the 
programme announced by the Prime Minister is the pro- 
posal to gerrymander the Constitution by partial alterations 
of the electoral system, remedying the inequalities which 
tell against one party while maintaining the inequalities 
which tell against the other. 

With these allies and these objects it is not surprising 
that the Radical party should have put down as the first 
article of their political programme what is virtually 
the establishment of Single Chamber government — ^the 
autocratic power of the House of Commons. It is the 
foundation of their whole policy. To each of the several 
aggressive groups whom they are conciliating, whom they 
propose to unite in a common policy of destruction — to 
each of these several groups in succession they have pointed 
out, that unless the power of the House of Lords is in the 
first instance crippled, the execution of their programme is 
impossible. That is the meaning of all the artificial clamour 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 447 

against the House of Lords for having thwarted, as it is 
alleged it has thwarted, the wiU of the people. The House 
of Lords has never resisted the will of the people, when it 
was once clearly and conclusively expressed. What it has 
done in some cases is to delay the passing of measures 
until the popular judgment on them was clearly pronounced. 
What it has done over and over again is to prevent the 
country being rushed, by a majority of the House of 
Commons, into measures with which the people of the 
country were not in sympathy. Twice over, in the memor- 
able instance of Home Rule for Ireland, the Radical party 
has proved to be out of sympathy with the nation, and 
in one case it was only the intervention of the House of 
Lords which prevented it from carrying out its policy. I 
believe, for my own part, that, likewise with regard to the 
Education question, the action of the House of Lords — 
which did not reject the Education Bill but only amended 
it — was more in accord with the feeling of the majority of 
the people than was the action of the House of Commons. 
The power of the House of Lords, which is of most value, 
is the power of giving the nation an opportunity to show, 
whether or not the House of Commons in any particular 
instance is right in its often over-confident assertion that 
it represents the will of the nation. 

We have been asked — I am not going to detain you but 
for a few moments — we have been asked, and asked by 
no less a person than Lord Rosebery, of whom I think all 
his fellow-countrymen, whether they agree or not with 
all his opinions, should speak and think with respect — 
we have been asked what is the attitude of the Unionist 
party with regard to the reform of the House of Lords. 
Well, I have no claim myself to speak for the Unionist 
party as a whole. I am a free-lance, fighting on the 
side of the Unionist party, and fighting hard for the cause 
of Tariff Reform and Imperial Preference, for the unity 
of the Empire, for the defence of this country, and for 
practical social reforms. But I do not pretend to speak 
as a Unionist leader. What I should like to say, in answer 



448 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

to that question, is that the proof of the pudding is in the 
eating. If Lord Rosebery, or anybody else, wishes to 
know what the attitude of the Unionist party to the 
reform of the House of Lords is, he surely has got the facts 
before him. A Unionist member of the House of Lords 
proposed and carried a motion on this subject, which was 
referred to a committee. That committee has reported, 
and the purport of their report is to alter the constitution 
of the House of Lords in two very material respects, and, 
from my own point of view, greatly to improve it. One 
feature of these proposals is a large reduction in the number 
of men sitting in the House of Lords by hereditary right, 
and the imposition of a test, by which those who do sit 
by hereditary right shall only do so after having proved 
their qualification by public service. Another feature of 
these proposals is the addition to the House of Lords of 
a large number of life peers, whose introduction is intended 
to give it a more representative character. That is a 
policy emanating from the Unionists, supported by the 
Unionists, and brought to the stage which it has already 
reached by the Unionists. I have heard no criticism, 
no hostile criticism, of this policy from any quarter 
in the Unionist party. On the contrary, the only com- 
ment I have heard upon it from Unionist quarters is the 
suggestion that it might be carried, as personally I think 
it ought to be carried, even farther. But what has been 
the attitude of the Government toward these proposals ? 
They have boycotted the whole thing from the very start. 
Let this be clearly understood. It cannot be denied by 
any man that it is the Unionist party which is in favour 
of the reform of the House of Lords. It is the Radical 
party which wishes to keep in existence an unreformed 
House of Lords — provided that that House can be reduced 
to impotence. One of the very first items, in my opinion, 
which would necessarily find a place in the programme of 
any Unionist Government, would be an alteration in the 
constitution of the House of Lords, calculated to enable 
it to exercise powers, which it is in the highest interest 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 449 

of the nation that it should be free to exercise, without 
being exposed to the vihfication and abuse, and to the 
misconstruction, to which it is now so easily exposed in 
every discharge of its duty. That is a reform which would 
have to find a place in the programme of a Unionist 
Government when first returned to power. 

There are other measures with which you are familiar, 
which would also find a place in that programme. I am 
not going to dwell upon them now, except just to mention 
in conclusion what are the chief of them. First and 
foremost stands the policy of Tariff Reform and Imperial 
Preference. But the Unionist party is also pledged, and 
deeply pledged, to the adequate defence of the country 
under all circumstances, and especially to maintaining 
the unquestionable supremacy of our Fleet, not going to 
sleep about it, not turning a deaf ear to warnings that 
other countries are silently gaining upon us in their pre- 
para^tions, in the number of their ships and in the materials 
for their construction — not turning a deaf ear to those 
warnings for years, and then suddenly bursting into 
spasmodic activity in all the dockyards just on the eve 
of a General Election. No, but going on steadily year by 
year without somnolence, without neglect, and keeping our 
ships, our armaments, and our power of producing ships 
and armaments always well in advance of those of our 
only dangerous rivals. 

I would say one word also, though I am not at present 
speaking in an agricultural constituency, in favour of the 
policy of the rehabihtation of agriculture, the greatest of 
all our industries, and that which has been most grossly 
sacrificed by our fiscal legislation in the past. The leader 
of the Unionist party has declared in favour of an in- 
crease in the number of the owners of land. But it is 
not sufficient to increase the number of owners of land, 
unless we increase the opportunities of making a living out 
of the land, and that is not to be done by one sensational 
measure. It can only be done by a policy steadily pursued 
throughout years, and consisting of a number of well- 

2f 



450 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 23, 

considered and related measures. You may well ask why- 
hundreds of millions should be spent in enabling the Irish 
tenant to buy land, compulsorily if need be, from his land- 
lord, when not one million is spent in this country to enable 
tenants — even where they are willing to buy and landlords 
are willing to seU — to purchase their holdings. You may 
well ask why the principle of assisting the voluntary 
transfer of land from landlord to tenant should not be 
adopted in the United Kingdom. That is only one thing. 
There are other measures which would be necessary. If 
the small owner is to succeed, he will need to be helped 
in the matter of the formation of co-operative societies, 
as he is helped in many foreign countries. He will need 
to be helped also by the creation of land banks enabling 
him to obtain credit on easy terms. Such banks are the 
standby and salvation of the small owner in many foreign 
countries I have visited. It is just this sort of practical 
measure, which perhaps does not appeal very much to 
crowded audiences, and is sometimes the scoff of ignorant 
politicians, that is the very essence of good government 
and of real social reform. I say that there are measures 
of this kind — a whole series of them — which will be 
necessary, if the Unionist policy of increasing the number 
of holders of land, and of small holders, is to be a 
success. 

And, lastly, the Unionist policy has to take account of 
aU those necessities of social reform which are common 
ground, as far as their aim is concerned, for both political 
parties. I do not deny that on many of these questions — ■ 
questions of housing, of sweating, of insurance against 
accidents and sickness — there is a large measure of agree- 
ment between us and our opponents. The Unionist party 
will have to prove its capacity to deal with these questions, 
and it will have two great advantages in dealing with them. 
The first of these is that it is not committed to a series of 
violent constitutional changes, which are inevitably destined 
to push the quiet consideration of these vital social ques- 
tions for the time being off the board. What chance is 



1909] TWO CONFLICTING POLICIES 451 

there for them, if we are to be involved during the next 
few years in bitter constitutional struggles over the ques- 
tion of the Union, the question of the Second Chamber, 
or the question of the Establishment of the Church ? 
That is one advantage which the Unionist party possesses, 
and there is another and even more fundamental one, 
and that is, that it has a free hand to employ remedies 
which go to the root of the social evils, of which the Poor 
Law, and other laws affecting the condition of the masses 
of the people, are only palliatives. The root trouble is the 
prevalence of so much poverty, of so much unemployment, 
and increasing unemployment. You can try to deal with 
these evils by various means. You can do so by labour 
registries, you can do so by insurance, you can do so by 
legislation against sweating. But aU such measures, though 
they minimise the evils, do not go to the root of them. 
At the root of them all lies the problem of employment. 
It is a question of your national output and your 
national trade. The real remedy lies in a pohcy directed 
to the development of national production, to the main- 
tenance of our national trade, to obtaining fair play for 
our trade in the competition of the markets of the world. 
Yes, that goes to the root, and until you approach the 
matter from that point of view, all your other minor 
reforms, however useful — I do not deny that they may 
be useful in their way — will always be like pouring sand 
into a sieve, like pouring water into a vessel which has 
a hole at the bottom of it. Our policy is to stop the 
hole ; our policy is to aim at two great things. One is to 
preserve for British hands and British brains the maximum 
of productive work in our own country, and the other is to 
secure for British exports the greatest and the surest of 
the future markets of the world, the market of our own 
Dominions. 



452 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 28, 

LONDON.— April 28, 1910 

Imperial Organisation 
[In presiding at a dinner of the Compatriots Club. 

Before touching on those wider considerations which the 
toast suggests, I should Hke to say a few words about 
the Club. I think we may take a modest pride in the 
fact that the late election has increased the number of 
members of the Club, who are also members of the House 
of Commons, from eighteen to thirty-six. And we note 
with even greater pleasure that of the new members of 
that assembly who have already made their mark, on 
the Unionist side, a very large proportion are Compatriots. 
I believe the Club in its short hfe has already exercised 
a considerable influence upon political opinion in this 
country, but nothing to what I hope to see it exercise in 
the future. A great deal depends upon that, on the per- 
meation of the Unionist party, and perhaps in time of 
other parties also, by the political ideas which are distinc- 
tive of, I will not say exclusively peculiar to, this associa- 
tion. I do not know that, to be a Compatriot, a man must 
necessarily be a Unionist in the narrower party sense, 
although at the present time, in view of certain tendencies 
which are dominant in the other poHtical parties, this 
is perhaps the only course open to him. But I do feel 
convinced that the future of Unionism, alike from the lower 
point of view of electoral success, and from the higher 
point of view of national usefulness, is bound up with its 
fidelity to those principles which we Compatriots are 
banded together to promote. To put it quite simply, 
Unionists can never afford to forget that they are the party 
of Imperial as well as national unity. They cannot afford, 
even when the local controversies of this United Kingdom 
are raging most fiercely, to let themselves be whoUy absorbed 
by them, or to lose sight of those broader and world-wide 
interests of the Empire and the race, which are of such 
vital though often unrecognised importance to the people 
of these islands, and not least to the toihng millions who 



igio] IMPERIAL ORGANISATION 453 

may not be giving them a thought. It is the business 
of men, who are in a position to think for them, to keep 
those momentous issues steadily to the front. 

Just now it is not perhaps very easy to do it. We 
are plunged in a controversy, not unimportant certainly, 
but thoroughly unprofitable, which distracts — as it was 
intended to distract — attention from the constructive 
policy of Imperial consolidation and social reform, of 
which, by a long-sustained effort, we had just begun to 
make people realise the necessity and the value. The 
old manoeuvre of tinkering the political machine, in order 
to prevent anything useful being done with it, has once 
more been resorted to, not without considerable temporary 
effect. Energies which are sorely needed for work of posi- 
tive and constructive value have perforce to be diverted 
to the defence of our fundamental institutions against 
unscrupulous attack. I shall have something to say pre- 
sently about the needlessness of the present embittered 
quarrel. But let me dwell first for a few minutes upon 
an aspect of it which is sometimes forgotten — I mean, its 
Imperial aspect. Can any one find in the arguments and 
the pohcy of those who are engaged in trying to destroy 
the House of Lords, the slightest recognition of, the slightest 
interest in, the effect of such a revolution upon the British 
Parliament, as the central organ of a great Imperial system ? 
The only thing they see in it, the only thing they care 
about, is its effect on the relations of British parties, upon 
the domestic politics of the United Kingdom. And I for 
one should be heartily glad if nothing else was involved. 
It is a terrible defect of the constitution of this Empire, 
that one and the same assembly, the Parliament at West- 
minster, has not only to deal with all the local affairs of 
these islands, but with Defence, with Foreign Affairs, with 
India, with our relations with the self-governing Dominions, 
and with their relations with one another and the outside 
world. But, however regrettable, that is the actual posi- 
tion of affairs. With the best of luck it will take years 
of effort, of constructive not destructive statesmanship, 



454 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 28, 

to alter it, and in the meantime we cannot afford to let 
that ParUament be rendered more inefficient than it already 
is for one great branch of its work. 

I am not indeed one of those who think it can be rendered 
more efficient by importing new elements into it from 
outside. It is no doubt an attractive proposal, at first 
sight, that the occasion of a change in the constitution of 
the House of Lords should be used to give some representa- 
tion at Westminster to the over-sea Dominions. It is an 
attractive idea, but in my humble opinion it is not at all a 
sound one. That is the wrong line of development. If, 
as I fervently hope, the present loose association of the 
self-governing states of the Empire grows in time into a 
regular partnership, it can only be, as it seems to me, by 
the development of a new organ of government representa- 
tive of them all, and dealing exclusively with matters of 
common interest. It would only heighten confusion to 
bring representatives of the Dominions into the House of 
Commons. And if, as I think every one would admit, it 
is impracticable to bring them into the House of Commons, 
they would certainly say ' Thank you for nothing ' if we 
were to offer them a few seats in the House of Lords. But 
while our so-called Imperial Parliament is not and cannot 
be, in any true sense, representative of the whole Empire, it 
does in the present chaotic state of our Imperial organisa- 
tion constantly deal with Imperial affairs. Imperfect 
instrument as it is for work of this character, do you think 
it would be better if it consisted only of the House of 
Commons ? With all respect for that assembly, I think 
it would be infinitely worse. I have no wish to draw 
comparisons between the two Houses. My argument 
involves no disparagement of the House of Commons. All 
I say is that, in dealing with the whole range of Imperial 
questions, Parliament would be immensely weakened by 
the loss of what the House of Lords is able to contribute 
to the decision, and even more to the discussion, of them. 
The weight of authority, and I do not mean only official 
experience, which many members of the House of Lords 



igio] IMPERIAL ORGANISATION 455 

can bring to bear on questions of Defence, of Foreign 
Policy, of the affairs of the Dominions and Dependencies, 
is really impressive. There is nothing equal to it in the 
House of Commons. On the other hand, it detracts in 
no conceivable manner from the legitimate influence of 
the House of Commons. Why should the country throw 
such an asset away ? You may say that under a different 
system the best men in the Lords would find seats in the 
House of Commons. And some of them, no doubt, might, 
but many would not. Nor does it follow that they would 
be equally useful there. Membership of the House of 
Commons is a career in itself. It needs years of special 
training. Moreover, in the House of Commons such men 
would necessarily be much more in the grip of party. 
That is the greatest weakness of the House of Commons 
in dealing with these great questions, into which our 
party differences ought never to be allowed to enter. In 
the House of Lords the party whip can never be cracked 
with the same efficacy, and with regard to questions of 
this character it cannot be cracked at all. On such occa- 
sions it is only broad national considerations which can 
be urged with effect in that assembly. Mere party recrimina- 
tion, though I do not say it is not sometimes made, is certain 
to fall dead flat. In the controversy which is at present 
occupying so much attention, there is this point of first- 
rate importance which it would be dangerous to overlook — 
I mean, the necessity of preserving in the Second Chamber, 
at any rate as long as the Parliament of the United Kingdom 
is still so largely responsible for Imperial affairs, the capacity, 
and the inclination, to deal with those affairs in a national 
and not a party spirit. Observe that this is not a high Tory 
argument for leaving things exactly as they are. If I have 
dwelt on certain aspects of the House of Lords in which 
it is an almost ideal Second Chamber, I do not ignore that 
there are defects in the constitution of that assembly 
which I believe all reasonable men would like to remedy. 
Be it admitted, that for purposes of domestic legislation 
the House of Lords, while possessing in this field also many 



456 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 28, 

and great merits, does suffer from not being sufficiently- 
representative, not sufficiently in touch with all sides of 
the national life. There is too great a preponderance of 
one political party and one social class. The problem is 
how to strengthen the House by the introduction of new 
elements, without sacrificing what is precious and irreplace- 
able in its character and traditions. A difficult problem, 
no doubt, but surely not insoluble, if it were approached 
with some regard for permanent national interests and 
not in the spirit of the narrowest and most short-sighted 
partisanship. The way of dealing with the question which 
the Government has so far chosen to adopt, or rather 
which it has been pushed and dragged and kicked into 
adopting, is absolutely hopeless. There is not a sugges- 
tion, not a glimmer of a statesmanlike solution, nothing 
but a violent temporary expedient, dictated by the desire 
of keeping a number of discordant factions in one yoke 
for another year or two. Admitting, to start with, that a 
Second Chamber is a national necessity, they yet propose 
to reduce the existing Second Chamber to an absurdity, 
while deferring the final settlement of the question to the 
Greek Kalends. Such a policy carries its condemnation 
on its face, but worse than the policy itself is the method 
by which it is sought to ram it down the throat of the 
nation. If there is one thing certain, it is that you cannot 
alter the fundamental institutions of any country without 
a decisive and a continuous preponderance of public 
opinion in favour of the alteration. No sHght casual 
majority can possibly suffice. A bare majority may be 
enough to change a Government or to pass a law of ordinary 
importance. But where it is a question of a radical recon- 
struction of the whole political system, one half of the 
nation simply is not strong enough to force a one-sided 
settlement upon the other half. As was well said the other 
day by an able writer who calls himself ' Historicus,' 
' Neither this country nor any country I ever heard of has 
allowed its constitution to be fundamentally altered by a 
bare majority of votes.' In a matter of vital and con- 



igio] IMPERIAL ORGANISATION 457 

tinuing importance such as this, the beaten party would 
simply not accept the settlement. What a bare majority 
on the one side did to-day, a bare majority on the other 
would undo to-morrow, and so we might go on disestab- 
lishing and re-establishing our Second Chamber until we 
ended by fighting over it. The whole conception is childish. 
Every rational man must see that this is a position in 
which neither party can have its whole wiU, and that the 
attempt to base a revolution upon a slight, a peculiarly 
insecure, preponderance of voting power is foredoomed to 
failure. And the irony of the situation is that there is 
no real reason at all why, over this question of all others, 
the nation need be divided into two hostile and almost 
equal camps, engaged in a ' pull devil, pull baker ' struggle 
to get the mastery of one another. This, our usual method, 
may be aU very well for the settlement of ordinary political 
differences within the constitution, but when you come to 
altering the constitution itself, it is quite unsuitable. More- 
over, this method of deahng with the matter, however dear 
to the wire-pullers, is, I am firmly convinced, contrary to 
the real wishes and just instincts of the nation. There is 
no genuine division of opinion at aU corresponding to the 
factitious lines of party cleavage. Of the forces at present 
being led against the House of Lords, the majority do not 
in the least want Single Chamber government, although it 
is that and nothing else which they are being made use of 
to establish. Of the forces rallying to the defence of the 
House of Lords the majority are not in the least opposed 
to a reform of that House ; on the contrary, they would 
positively prefer to see its composition modified and the 
extent of its powers more clearly defined. There are all 
the elements here for a settlement by agreement, like that 
which terminated the constitutional crisis of 1884-5, and 
in a case of this kind it is only a settlement by agreement 
which can be either a satisfactory or a lasting settlement. 
Why then is this poor British nation not to be allowed 
to settle its constitutional difficulties in the only rational 
and practical way ? The reason is discreditable to the 



458 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [april 28, 

verge of absurdity. It is because a faction of the House 
of Commons, the numbers of which are grossly out of 
proportion to the forces behind them — ^for Ireland is greatly 
over-represented in any case, and Mr. Redmond and his 
followers are becoming daily less representative of Ireland — 
because, I say, this faction, which cares nothing and does 
not pretend to care about the general welfare of the United 
Kingdom, but pursues a purely sectarian object with the 
support of foreign paymasters, has ordained that there 
shall be a constitutional crisis of a character which every 
good citizen must deplore, and because a Ministry has been 
found weak enough, after interminable wrigglings, to 
capitulate to this preposterous demand. And so the whole 
nation is to be plunged into a bitter and prolonged struggle, 
which it does not want, to the detriment of vital interests 
at home and abroad already too long neglected, in order 
that the constitution of the country may be not reformed, 
not remodelled on any rational plan, but just roughly 
mutilated in that particular manner which suits the imme- 
diate necessities of Mr. Redmond and his followers. The 
improved Second Chamber, which the Ministry themselves 
declare to be necessary for the United Kingdom, can wait. 
But to enable the next Parliament to pass a Home Rule 
Bill without having to submit it to the nation is a matter 
of urgency. Yes ; and how many other BiUs which different 
sections of the composite majority are anxious to smuggle 
through without the nation being allowed to say whether it 
wants them or not ? This is indeed a splendid illustration of 
the beauties of Single Chamber government . The whole point 
of that system is that, if you have, by whatever means, 
knocked up a majority in your Single Chamber, you can play 
ducks and drakes with every national interest without any- 
body being able to stop you. Here is a coalition of several 
parties, nominally three, but really more, for the Ministerial 
party proper comprises the most conflicting elements. 
Each of them has some pet measure or measures up its sleeve, 
measures which, on their merits, the country would never 
accept, and which at the next election their advocates will 



igio] IMPERIAL ORGANISATION 459 

take good care to keep as much as possible in the back- 
ground. If they could only win the election and induce the 
nation to give up aU control over its destinies for five years, 
these factions would at once begin to puU their pet measures 
out of their several wallets and to exchange acceptances, 
just as Mr. Redmond and his followers have now bartered 
support of a Budget which Ireland detests for the Prime 
Minister's promise to put pressure on the King, which I 
will do Mr. Asquith the justice to say that he detests. In 
opposition to this transparent chicanery, I believe that all 
the believers in really popular government will be solidly 
united. But I agree with my friend Mr. Oliver, that the 
number of people who care for constitutional principles, or 
even know what the word constitution means, though no 
doubt very large, is not large enough to ensure victory at 
a General Election. If the nation is to be saved from the 
wire-pullers, it is not on the constitutional issue alone 
that the battle must be fought. 

In this company of aU others it would be waste of time 
for me to discuss the strange suggestion, that the defence 
of the constitution might be promoted by shelving Tariff 
Reform. But for the high authority of the statesman 
from whom it emanated, enhanced as that authority is 
by the splendid fight he is at present making against Single 
Chamber despotism, nobody would have paid any atten- 
tion to that advice. As it is, those who are fresh from the 
electoral struggle in the constituencies can be relied upon 
not to take it, for they certainly are not going to throw 
away the most powerful weapon in their whole armoury. 
Tariff Reform, as I conceive the situation, is the sword 
of Damocles always hanging over the head of the present 
Government. It is to divert men's minds from Tariff 
Reform that all the strategy of the Government for more 
than a year past has been designed, and for Unionists to 
allow Tariff Reform to fall into the background would be 
to play straight into the hands of their opponents. But 
in my opinion, there is no danger of that. What is more 
dangerous, more insidious, is the suggestion that, without 



460 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 7, 

abandoning Tariff Reform altogether, the Unionist party 
might just quietly drop those portions of it which lend 
themselves most readily to misrepresentation. It is con- 
tended that if only we could get rid of the ' dear food ' 
cry, our position would be much stronger. And I, for one, 
should be the last to deny that the ' dear food ' cry, clap- 
trap though it is, has been a great stumbling-block in the 
way of Tariff Reformers, and to some extent, though a 
constantly diminishing extent, may always remain a 
stumbling-block. If Tariff Reform had been confined to 
a proposal to tax foreign manufactured goods, I believe 
it would have swept the country long before now. But 
the question is at what cost would Tariff Reformers have 
gained that immediate victory ? At the cost, it seems to 
me, of depriving their policy of its whole basis in prin- 
ciple, and of its chief value in the struggle for Imperial 
Unity. The proposal, as it seems to me, could only come, 
as in fact it does come, from those who have never heartily 
sympathised with Tariff Reform, because they have never 
understood it. To adopt that proposal would be to paralyse 
all the men whose strenuous advocacy has very nearly 
achieved victory already, and will surely achieve it in the 
future, because it is inspired by conviction, and by their 
grasp of a great and pregnant policy as a whole. In my 
humble opinion we have already gone quite far enough, 
perhaps too far, in sacrificing this or that item in our pro- 
gramme in order to disarm hostility, which is not in the 
least disarmed but only stimulated by such concessions. 
But we have not yet sacrificed anything that is vital, as 
we should do if we got away from the fundamental prin- 
ciple of fair play to the British producer all round, coupled 
with a preferential treatment of our fellow-countrymen 
across the seas, who have accorded a similar treatment 
to us, and who are prepared to bear, in an increasing 
degree, the burden of the common defence. And here 
let me say for the twentieth time, that we do not advocate 
the principle of Preference in order to buy the loyalty of 
the over-sea Dominions to the Empire. That is a pernicious 



I9I0] CROWN COLONIES 461 

misunderstanding. There is no question of buying loyalty. 
The loyalty exists. It is the countries in which it exists 
and the people who feel it that we want to strengthen, 
as they want to strengthen us, by the development of closer 
commercial relations, with all that such relations carry 
with them. Speaking for myself, if we could only save 
Tariff Reform by sacrificing Preference, I should still no 
doubt be a Tariff Reformer, for I must in any case wish 
for fair play for the productive industries of this country, 
but the heart would have been taken out of my political 
endeavours. What keeps some of us going in the dreary 
waste of present day politics is the prospect of a better 
future, a future in which the great permanent interests 
of this nation and Empire will come by their own, and the 
factitious quarrels which now absorb so much of our 
energies will sink into comparative insignificance. Towards 
the realisation of that idea the great policy inaugurated by 
Mr. Chamberlain, not perfect in aU its details certainly, 
but glorious in its breadth of view, and its patriotic inten- 
tion, was the biggest step ever taken in our time. I am 
confident that all those whom I am addressing will adhere 
to the main outHnes of that policy, until it has achieved, 
as it will achieve, a decisive victory. 

LIVERPOOL.— June 7, 1910 

Crown Colonies 

[An address delivered before the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.] 

I ASSURE you I regarded it as a great honour to be asked 
to deliver an address to this Chamber of Commerce. Inas- 
much as I am expected and I desire to be brief, it may seem 
rather presumptuous of me to choose for my subject one 
so vast as that of the Crown Colonies, but I reflected that 
I should be addressing an audience, many of whom are 
familiar with that subject in its practical aspects, and 
therefore that I might take many things for granted, which 
before another audience it might have been necessary to 
explain at length. This Chamber has in recent years taken 



462 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 7, 

a great, a growing, and, may I say, a most praiseworthy 
interest, in the administration of our Crown Colonies, and 
especially, perhaps, in that of West Africa, and it is in 
Africa, East and West, as I need not tell you, that the 
most remarkable developments of recent years have taken 
place — or perhaps I should say some of the most remark- 
able developments, for it is not right that any one speaking 
of Crown Colonies should overlook the great work which 
has been done by a distinguished band of British adminis- 
trators in the Straits Settlements and the Malay Peninsula 
generally. Still, no doubt it is in East, West and Central 
Africa that the greatest developments have taken place in 
recent years. Not only have our boundaries been immensely 
extended, but there has been an even more remarkable 
expansion in our ideas as to the possibilities of these great 
territories and of our duties in regard to them. I may 
only refer in this connection to the establishment, first in 
London and then in Liverpool, of the Schools of Tropical 
Medicine, institutions which, I believe, are destined to 
bestow the greatest benefits not only on our own tropical 
possessions, but, I hope, on all mankind. I am far from 
saying that even now there is such a general interest in 
the Crown Colonies as we should wish to see, or that there 
is anything like an adequate appreciation, on the part of 
the public generally, of their vast extent or of their still 
vaster possibilities. But there is at any rate a great change 
for the better in our attitude with regard to them, a more 
progressive and liberal policy, and a growing tendency to 
regard them not as isolated and unimportant adjuncts of 
our Imperial heritage, but as destined to play a very 
essential part in its development as a whole. One idea 
especially with regard to them is, I think, as new as it is 
pregnant. It dates, with a great deal else which will in 
time to come be regarded as epoch-making, from the great 
colonial administration of Mr. Chamberlain. I refer to 
the conception of our Crown Colonies as complementary 
and indispensable to the other parts of the Empire from 
the economic point of view. 



igio] CROWN COLONIES 463 

What appeals to many people who have no sentimental 
interest in the British Empire — a weakness to which I con- 
fess myself — ^is what an American friend of mine described 
as the conception of it as a business proposition. It seemed 
to him a very good business proposition, principally because 
there was hardly anything wanted by one part of it which 
some other part did not or could not supply. It was the 
self-supplying aspect of the Empire as a whole which 
appealed to him, as I think it will appeal more and more 
to all of us the more we think about it. In this aspect 
of the Empire the Crown Colonies have a very distinctive 
and very necessary role. Differing as they do in many 
respects from one another, they are aU, broadly speaking, 
countries of the tropical or sub -tropical zones. The self- 
governing parts of the Empire, including, of course, the 
United Kingdom itself, are all, on the other hand, again 
broadly speaking, countries of the temperate zones, and 
they are also all countries which either have or which will 
have great industrial development. But most of the 
industries of the self-governing portions of the Empire, 
their present or future industries, are partially dependent, 
and some of the chief of them are whoUy dependent — and 
this is certainly true of the United Kingdon itself — upon 
the products of tropical or sub-tropical zones. It is no 
small advantage at any time, and it may under given 
circumstances be vital, for a great industrial country to 
have the raw material, upon which its principal industries 
depend, produced within regions that are under its own 
control. This consideration, I would beg you to observe, 
is more important in the present, and is likely to be still 
more important in the future, than it has been in the past, 
and that because of the altered distribution of industries 
throughout the world. There are many forms of manu- 
facture which at one time were confined to a single country, 
or to one or two countries, but which have now become 
common to a much greater number. Each of these countries 
is looking, in the first instance, to supply its own market. 
There is a general desire all round to do that, and conse- 



464 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 7, 

quently there is much greater competition for raw material 
• — as we all see at the present time in the case of rubber 
and of cotton. You may be sure the countries, which 
command the supply of the raw materials within their 
own borders, or under their own jurisdiction, will take very 
great care to satisfy their own requirements before they 
think of their neighbours. Therefore it is a matter of 
singular importance that we have within our own Empire, 
in India and also in the Crown Colonies, lands capable of 
supplying those natural products, upon which there is in 
the future, to use a common expression, likely to be the 
greatest run. India, no doubt, occupies a foremost posi- 
tion in this respect, although it must be remembered — and 
this greatly qualifies her importance from this point of view 
— that India herself is becoming an increasingly industrial 
country. But the Crown Colonies, including Protectorates 
such as East Africa, Northern Rhodesia, the Federated 
Malay States, and, last but not least, the Soudan, are 
already immensely important from the point of view to 
which I have called your attention, and they are destined 
to be very much more important in future years. They are 
enormous in extent ; they are lands of immense fertility — 
not in all parts of them, but over great portions, and we 
have so far only scratched the surface of their natural 
resources. Interest in them is at present almost wholly 
confined to the United Kingdom itself ; but the interest 
taken in them by other portions of the Empire, the self- 
governing portions of it, is bound to grow. Contiguity 
alone would ensure this, especially with the constantly 
growing rapidity of means of communication. Canada 
cannot be indifferent to the future of the West Indies, or 
South Africa to the future of Barotseland or Nyassaland, 
or Australia to the future of the islands of the Southern 
Pacific and of the states of the Malay Peninsula. But 
there is a more potent influence than contiguity which 
will teU in the coming years. The greater the industrial 
development of the self-governing Dominions, the more 
attention will they be bound to devote to great countries 



igio] CROWN COLONIES 465 

under the British flag rich in those natural products, which 
are vital to the industries of the countries of the temperate 
zones. 

From that point of view, it may be that the common 
interest of the self-governing portions of the Empire in 
the Crown Colonies will become one of the strongest links 
between the self-governing Dominions and the Mother 
Country, and between the self-governing Dominions amongst 
themselves. The perception of the great actual and the 
greater potential value of the Crown Colonies in the economic 
sphere has, I think, been the principal cause of the recent 
great change of policy with regard to them. Our step- 
motherly neglect of those colonies in the past has been one 
of the least honourable pages in our history. As acquirers 
of over-sea possessions we have been remarkably successful. 
No doubt that is due to the fact of our long-continued, 
unquestioned supremacy upon the ocean. As governors 
of their native populations we have, at any rate since the 
abolition of the slave trade, held a fairly high record for 
humanity. But in respect of their development we have 
been extraordinarily unenterprising. Our niggardliness, 
especially our governmental niggardliness, has become a 
byword. I think it has been due less to meanness than 
to want of imagination. For centuries we have confined 
ourselves to the islands and the coast strips, and have 
seen nothing in the Crown Colonies but opportunities of 
trade : a very valuable trade certainly in many cases, but 
trade restricted to the comparatively limited number of 
products, which they could easily furnish in their raw state, 
without any substantial assistance from our capital or our 
science. No doubt there is an important exception to 
that in the past in the sugar industry of the West Indian 
Islands, but I do not know that, taking it as a whole, we 
have any very great reason to be proud of the history of 
our dealings with these communities. But of late years 
there has been a remarkable awakening as to the possi- 
bilities of what has been caUed our great imdeveloped 
estate. The centre of interest has shifted from the coast 

2 G 



466 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [june 7, 

strips to the great interior territories, and in place of the 
maintenance of a few penurious trading stations, we now 
see the beginning of a poHcy which aims, with European 
capital and by European science, at the development of 
these great territories, countries which supply some of the 
most valuable products of the earth in enormous quantities. 
Millions have been spent, and are being spent, upon rail- 
ways in East Africa north of the Zambesi, in West Africa 
and in the Soudan, railways which, though it is said to-day 
of some of them that they don't pay for their axle-grease, 
will, I think, in time, and with the growth of population 
under conditions of peace and orderly government and 
of sanitary science, be unable to deal with the traffic they 
will be called upon to carry. I know there will be many 
mistakes, that many enterprises will fail, and that there 
will be loss of life and treasure. But the possibilities are 
so many and so various, the untapped resources of these 
great countries are so vast, that the experiments which 
will succeed will more than compensate for all the failures, 
and the ultimate reward of persistent energy will be some- 
thing far greater than the boldest of us dream of to-day. 

In conclusion, let me say that I think the time has come 
when, in view of the greatness of our stake and of our 
responsibility in this undeveloped estate, which has grown 
with such amazing rapidity, there is a call for more serious 
and systematic study of the conditions with which we have 
to deal, and for a more highly trained, expert administra- 
tion. We have arrived at the end of the process of mere 
physical expansion ; we cannot push our borders very 
much further forward in the centre of Africa, for instance, 
for the very good reason that we already march with the 
borders of other people. The era of expansion is over ; 
the era of organisation is only just beginning. We do not 
want more territory. In truth it would not be good for 
us. We have an enormous work before us in making the 
best of the territories that we already possess. Despite 
all the novel interest excited in our Empire, and even in 
the Crown Colonies, the least regarded, though not the 



I9I0] CROWN COLONIES 467 

least important, portion of it, no one can say we really 
yet realise the extent or the importance of the subject. 
Nothing strikes me more constantly, in what I may call 
the misdirection of national energy, than the extraordinary 
contrast between the amount of time and labour and 
ingenuity, and I may add temper, which is expended upon 
the least of our home political questions, compared with 
the plentiful lack of thought and energy devoted to even 
the biggest problems of Empire, and especially to the 
biggest problems of our Crown Colonies. How many 
writers on political subjects are there who have devoted 
themselves to anything like a thorough study of the adminis- 
tration of our tropical dependencies ? It is a big subject ; 
it is based on important principles like any other 
branch of administration, but yet a small library — I might 
say one shelf — would contain all the serious work that 
has ever been done on the subject. Some of that work 
is perfectly excellent, though it is comparatively little re- 
garded. As yet only a small portion of the field has been 
covered. Such work, like all scientific work, naturally 
appeals only to a limited class. It will only have a few 
readers, though it is of the utmost value to the specialist. 
It does not pay. We have not yet soared to the concep- 
tion that the country should pay for what is essential to 
the training of the men who are going to be its agents in 
these vast territories of which I have been speaking. Indeed, 
we have not any organised service as yet — ^no fully organised 
service at all such as we have and are proud of in India. 
They have made, and it is a very great credit to them, 
the beginning of such a service in the Anglo -Egyptian 
Soudan, but there is room for a great deal more to be done 
in that direction. I am afraid that the prospects we hold 
out are not sufficient to attract men of the necessary quality, 
although I am glad to think that we have had some very 
good men in our colonial service, and everything considered, 
the results of our administration have been better than 
might have been expected from the haphazard methods 
of selection. I suppose it is a question of money, and 



468 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [ocx. 28, 

though we are so much more Hberal than we used to be, 
I do not think we are as yet anything like liberal enough 
in the conception of what is needed for the equipment of 
an undeveloped country, and in realising how much you 
must spend without immediate return, if you are going to 
make a real success of it in the long run. 

The first plant of civilisation, if I may use a technical 
expression, is immensely costly in these new countries, 
and yet it is no use being miserly about it. I speak to you 
from experience. The biggest bit of work in Crown Colony 
government in our time was done in the new South African 
colonies immediately after the war. They were only tem- 
porarily Crown Colonies. We knew that they belonged 
essentially to colonies of the self-governing class. By virtue 
of their temperate chmate and their European population, 
there was never any doubt that they had ultimately to 
take their places among the self-governing Dominions of the 
Empire. There was a brief but necessary period of Crown 
Colony administration, and during that time we drove the 
machine ahead at a most tremendous pace. I know 
we were often attacked for our extravagance ; I myself 
was looked at askance by my friends, because of what 
were considered expensive fads — fads about experimental 
farms, bacteriological laboratories, afforestation, and bring- 
ing men of science — often receiving high salaries — from 
distant parts of the world to give a new impetus to agricul- 
ture. Many people used to laugh at the idea of the Trans- 
vaal ever becoming a serious agricultural proposition. I do 
not think they laugh at it in these days. But I am afraid 
to reveal to you the full extent of my heresy in these 
matters — my entire disbelief in the old doctrine, that it is 
the business of a Government to keep the peace and prevent 
people breaking one another's heads, but to leave all the 
rest to private enterprise. That may be a very good 
plan in old and wealthy countries, but it is absolutely fatal, 
it absolutely kills the chances of any rapid development 
in a new and raw country, which is totally devoid of what 
you may call the necessary equipment of civilisation. It 



igio] NATIONAL SERVICE AND SECURITY 469 

is only public effort and public money which can give it that 
necessary equipment. But I will not spoil your appetite 
for lunch by opening up a fresh vista of great public expendi- 
ture. I can only thank you for the patience with which 
you have listened to these necessarily rather general and, 
some of you may think, somewhat superficial remarks, and 
express my hope that you will persist, as a Chamber, in 
your excellent efforts to keep Governments, of whatever 
party, up to the mark in respect of their duty to the 
Crown Colonies of the Empire. 

CANTERBURY.— October 28, 1910 

National Service — National Security 

[At a meeting of tlie Canterbury branch, of the National Service League, 
the Dean of Canterbury presiding.] 

A GOOD deal of time is often spent at meetings like the 
present in insisting on the duty of every able-bodied man 
of military age to fight for the defence of his country in 
case of necessity, and therefore to undergo the training 
which is requisite to qualify him to fight efficiently. And 
I do not for one moment say that such insistence is idle 
or superfluous. But on this occasion, just by way of a 
change, I am not going to argue about this duty. I am 
going to assume that you recognise it. In my opinion, 
the great difficulty before the National Service League 
is not that of persuading people, in the abstract, of the 
duty of defending their country. The great difficulty is 
that of convincing them of the practical necessity, or 
rather, let me say, the practical utility of universal military 
training for that purpose. Let me put the argument, 
the only formidable argument, as it seems to me, which 
is ever brought against us. That argument — I will state 
it very broadly but, I hope, quite fairly — ^is this : Our 
country consists of islands, and of islands which, in respect 
of their food-supply, are not seK-supporting. It therefore 
depends for its security, you may say for its existence, 
in case of war, upon the command of the sea. As long as 



470 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 28, 

our Navy is supreme at sea, invasion, or at least invasion 
in great force, is impossible — therefore there is no occasion 
to have a large army to repel it. If, on the other hand, our 
Navy lost the command of the sea, then no degree of mihtary 
strength would be of any avail, for we could be starved 
into submission. That is the argument, and, as I say, it is 
a formidable one, not only because there is some sub- 
stance in it — it is not mere sentimentality or verbiage — 
but because it lends itself to very simple and effective 
statement. 

By far the most damaging of all the criticisms directed 
against those who urge the necessity of a great increase 
of our military strength is that their efforts may have an 
injurious effect upon the strength of the Navy. There is, 
after all, a limit, it may be said, and truly said, to what we 
can do, to what any nation can do, however great its popu- 
lation and resources, in the way of preparation for war. 
If you are going in for a great increase of your military 
armaments, it must inevitably in the long run tend to 
diminish the extent of your naval armaments, and you 
will have developed the less essential of your defensive 
forces at the expense of the more essential. And I will 
admit at once that, if I believed that the demand for a 
greatly increased Army, and for the adoption of the prin- 
ciple of universal military training and service as the only 
means of getting it, was going to result in reducing our 
strength at sea, I should never raise my voice in support 
of that demand. 

But I do not believe that it will have any such effect, 
but just the reverse. Let me try and explain to you why 
I think so, for that is the best way I know of unfolding 
the whole of our policy and answering, as far as I can, 
the argument which I have just put against myself, and 
which, I repeat, is the most formidable argument we have 
to face. 

Undoubtedly the problem of National Defence must be 
looked at as a whole. It is not the strength of the Army 
by itself which is the vital point, nor yet the strength of 



I9I0] NATIONAL SERVICE AND SECURITY 471 

the Navy by itself, but their strength in conjunction. You 
may say that is a platitude, a truism, the most obvious 
thing in the world, yet in practice it is, like other truisms, 
often not sufficiently regarded. It is not sufficiently 
regarded, as it seems to me, by those who use that argu- 
ment which I have just propounded. They seem to think 
that an increase in the strength of our Army would have 
no effect on our Navy, except indeed the possible bad effect 
of indirectly weakening it by a dissipation of our resources. 
But that is surely a fundamental fallacy. You may 
strengthen your Navy, directly, by adding to the number 
of your ships and your guns, but you may also strengthen 
it, indirectly, by relieving it of some of the burdens which 
at present it has to carry. If it is true, as I think I can 
show you, that we at present look to our naval forces to 
do work which is more properly the business of a land 
force, then, by transferring that work to a land force, we 
should be increasing the capacity of the Navy to discharge 
its own proper duties. The whole problem is, looking as 
I have said at National Defence as a whole, to determine 
in what proportion you should develop the one or the 
other side of it. No doubt the proper proportion will 
vary with the circumstances of each case. It will be 
different in the case of an island state, and in the case of 
a state which has land frontiers as well as a sea-board. 

But in every case there must be a certain proportion. 
Sooner or later you will reach a point at which, however 
much you may have developed one of your fighting arms, 
you must, in the interest of your total strength — and even 
in the interest of that highly developed arm itself — look 
also to the development of the other. Nobody in his 
senses, however great the importance he assigns to the 
Navy, would contend that we could do altogether without 
an Army. And the question at any given time is whether, 
in the interest of National Defence as a whole, it is the 
Army or the Navy, or both, which more requires streng- 
thening, and, if both, in what several degrees ? There are 
many people who maintain to-day that our Navy, powerful 



472 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 28, 

as it is, is still not powerful enough. I am not prepared 
to dispute it, but I do maintain that, however urgent may- 
be the necessity of strengthening our fleet, the necessity 
of strengthening our land forces is at least equally urgent, 
and that it is so, not only for the sake of our security on 
land, but quite as much for the sake of our power at sea. 
Granted, as I for one am most amply prepared to grant, 
that sea power is vital for this country and Empire, I yet 
hold that for the maintenance of that sea power itself 
we require a more considerable degree of land power than 
we have at present got, and that we shall continue to run 
unconscionable risks until we provide it. 

This is not, I think, the generally accepted view. Cer- 
tainly it does not seem to be the official view. The official 
view, as far as it is possible to elicit it, would appear to 
be this : ' We need an Army, but not on the scale of the 
armies of Continental states, not even of small states such 
as Bulgaria and Roumania. For our Army exists, not for 
wars such as those in which Continental armies may be called 
upon to engage, but for the defence of our over-sea posses- 
sions, and of course principally of India. For that purpose, 
our Regular Army, in its present numbers, is sufficient, 
having regard to the extent to which it can be increased, 
in case of emergency, by the Reserve and Special Reserve.' 
Now that by itself is a very questionable proposition. 
With our experiences in the Boer War before us, it takes 
a bold man to assert that, even if we disregard altogether 
contingencies nearer home, our Regular Army with its 
present strength and its present degree of expansiveness, 
is certain to be adequate to any demands which may be 
made upon it with respect to our over-sea possessions. 
It did not prove adequate in the case of the Boer War. 
We had to supplement it, with aU its Reserves and the 
Militia, by a number of troops hastily extemporised for 
the occasion, at enormous cost, and with very varying 
results in point of efficiency. But our Regular Army is 
no larger now than it was then. It has even been some- 
what reduced. Neither, I think, can it be maintained 



I9I0] NATIONAL SERVICE AND SECURITY 473 

that its power of expansion is greater, for the Special 
Reserve — the only new feature — ^no more than replaces, 
if it does indeed replace, the old Militia. And then you 
must remember that the demands of the Boer War left 
this country practically denuded of regular troops. 

Is that a position of a£Eairs, the recurrence of which we 
can contemplate with equanimity ? Are we content with 
an Army, the whole of which, and indeed more than the 
whole of which, may be required in some part of our vast 
and scattered Empire, leaving us without any regular 
troops at aU in these islands ? What is the official answer 
to that question ? WeU, I am bound to say the official 
answer is far from clear, but this at least is as clear as 
noon-day : there is no escape from this dilemma, that 
you must either say that the whole of our Regular Army 
and its Reserves is more than can possibly be required 
for the defence of our distant possessions, an assertion 
which, in view of our quite recent experience in South 
Africa, is patently absurd ; or you must admit that our 
present arrangements leave us perpetually liable to be 
deprived of the whole of the Regular Army and its Reserves 
for the purpose of Home Defence. And yet it must be 
obvious to every one who thinks seriously of these matters, 
that if there is any danger — and who will maintain that 
there is none ? — of our being involved in a life and death 
struggle at or near home, it is precisely in a crisis, in which 
our Regular Army was required in some distant region, 
that that danger would be most likely to arise. We were 
certainly very near it at the time of the Boer War, although 
we had then — what we have since lost — an overwhelming 
preponderance at sea. 

And yet it is upon our strength at sea, relatively diminished 
as it is, that the official Pangloss always falls back when 
he is driven into this corner. Our Regular Army with its 
Reserves may be wanted in the most distant parts of the 
earth. The whole of it may be so wanted, as it was less 
than ten years ago. But what does it matter ? We shall 
still be safe over here, for we have always got the Navy. 



474 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 28, 

The Navy is our true and our sufficient Home Defence 
force. Well, but if that is so, why have a Territorial Army 
at all ? Why make all these frantic appeals to the patriotism 
of the nation to supply us with what, on this theory, is a 
superfluous luxury ? The official answer to that conundrum 
is indeed a controversial curiosity. It ought really to be 
embalmed for the delectation of future ages as a master- 
piece of ingenious sophistry. The Territorial Army, it 
seems, is not there to defeat the invader. For that purpose 
it might not be safe to rely upon it, at any rate until it 
had had six months' training after the outbreak of war, 
which the would-be invader cannot be absolutely trusted 
to give it time for. It is there to frighten the invader into 
coming — if he comes at all — ^with a force of such magni- 
tude that the Navy is bound to see him and catch him. 
But are we, in all seriousness, prepared to stake our national 
existence upon the soundness of a theory such as this ? 
Substantially it is only a rather comical variation of the 
old argument with which we started, the all-sufflciency 
of the Navy. Look at it how you will, the apologists of 
our present system are always driven back to this position, 
that we must be supreme at sea, and that if we lost, even 
temporarily, the complete command of the sea, our case 
would be hopeless. That doctrine is, I venture to think, 
a dangerously exaggerated one, exaggerated in both direc- 
tions. It is exaggerated in its optimism, I mean in the 
assumption that the absolute command of the sea is some- 
thing which we can by willing it, by doubling and re- 
doubling our expenditure on ships and armaments, under 
all circumstances ensure. And it is exaggerated in its 
pessimism, that is to say in its craven teaching that, if we 
lost, even partially, even temporarily, the command of 
the sea, we must immediately collapse. That may be our 
case to-day — I am afraid it is something like our case — 
— ^but, if it is, it affords the strongest possible condemna- 
tion of our present system. Let us indeed by all means 
seek to maintain command of the sea. That must always 
be our main object. Let us seek it, among other things. 



igio] NATIONAL SERVICE AND SECURITY 475 

by ensuring to our fleets that mobility and striking 
power, which cannot but be gravely impaired by con- 
stant anxiety about an inadequately defended base. But 
do not let us for one moment admit that, if our power at 
sea were crippled, everything would be at an end, and we 
should just have to throw up our hands in despair. 

It is against that idea, and against acquiescence in a 
policy which is based on that idea, that the National 
Service League emphatically protests. And, if you come 
to think of it, is there not something crude and unreal in 
this talk about command of the sea, as if it was necessarily 
absolute one way or the other ? If you have it, all is well, 
if you have not got it, all is over. In how many wars has 
it not for a long time hung in the balance ? There can be 
no absolute command of the sea in war unless, as at 
Trafalgar, or at Tsushima, the enemy's fleet is wholly 
annihilated ; no absolute loss of it, unless your own fleet 
is similarly crushed. And no doubt, if the British fleet 
was absolutely crushed, no land force could save us, for 
then indeed we might be starved out, and invasion would 
be superfluous. But such a disaster is improbable, under 
present circumstances even impossible. What is like- 
wise, I hope, improbable, but surely not impossible, having 
regard to the naval forces that might at no distant future 
be brought against us, is that the British fleet should be 
unable at every stage of the conflict to afford us that 
absolute protection on which we rely. After all, in the 
great struggle of a hundred years ago, it needed nothing 
less than Trafalgar to give us that complete protection. 
But assuming for one moment (one does not like even to 
contemplate these terrible contingencies, but it is not 
sensible or manly to shut our eyes to them), assuming, 
I say, that we met with a reverse at sea, perhaps only 
a partial, only a temporary reverse, which uncovered a 
portion of our coasts, would not, under present circum- 
stances, invasion, and invasion in great force, almost 
certainly follow ? It would be infinitely easier to effect 
to-day than it has ever been in the past ; and no sane 



476 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [oct. 28, 

man can think without a shudder of what invasion in force, 
under present circumstances, would inevitably mean. A 
blow struck at the heart, the dislocation of our whole 
national life, perhaps the capture of one or more of our 
naval bases, or of the workshops supplying our material 
of war — these would convert a check at sea, from which, 
if unassailable on land, we might well recover, into an 
all-round and irretrievable disaster. Our power of recupera- 
tion would be gone. That, to my mind, is a far more real 
danger than the bugbear of starvation, even if we were to 
continue, as we need not continue, ought not to continue, 
and, as I hope, will not continue, to be as largely dependent 
as we now are on imported food. But that is a different 
topic which I cannot develop to-night. I will take things 
as they are, and I maintain that, as they are, you would 
have vessels from every part of the world vying with one 
another to pour supplies into the British market, and it 
would be no such easy matter to seal up all our ports. 
As long as the British fleet, even if it had failed to keep 
complete command of the sea, was still formidable, was 
still, to use the technical term, ' a Fleet in Being,' the 
hostile fleet which, in that case, would still be threatened, 
could not possibly afford to detach all the ships necessary 
to maintain such a blockade. Any disturbance of our 
food supplies would no doubt be a very grave matter. It 
would mean a great rise in prices, and immense hard- 
ship. But such disturbance, as distinct from complete 
interruption, would not spell ruin : an invading army 
of two or three hundred thousand men almost certainly 
would. 

Is it reasonable to leave the door wide open to such a 
possibility ? Even if the risk were less serious than it is, 
why should we run it at all ? What ails this nation that, 
with more to lose perhaps than any other, and with a stronger 
natural position to start with than any other, it is content 
to stop so far short of what other nations do for self -pro- 
tection ? Think of the French and Germans, with their 
two and a half years' military service, and their armies 



igio] NATIONAL SERVICE AND SECURITY 477 

of three or four million fully trained men. And here we 
are pottering over the training of two or three hundred 
thousand men for fifteen days a year, and no one knows 
how long we shall get even that number. We are content 
to leave it to chance. With the enormous advantage of 
our geographical position, we might be absolutely secure, 
safer within our seagirt borders than any nation with a 
great open land frontier can ever be, no matter what the 
extent of its military preparations. Yes, far safer, and 
with far less effort. But not with so little effort as we 
actually make. To leave the bulk of the manhood of this 
country without military training at all, to rely solely 
upon the Navy, is not to use the immense advantage of 
our insular position but to abuse it — ^to presume upon it. 
It is not fair to the Navy, that splendid service of which 
we are all proud, and which will, no doubt, do in the future 
as in the past, all that can reasonably be expected of it. 
And it would not be fair, in the case of a general European 
struggle, to our allies — ^or rather, let me say, it is not 
calculated to make our alliance as valuable or as desirable 
as it ought to be. 

I dare say a critic might say to me : ' What do you mean 
by talking of the inadequacy of our efforts ? Do we not 
already spend enormous sums upon National Defence ? 
And are not statesmen of all parties at present agreed in 
contemplating the expenditure of even greater sums ? ' 
Yes, but here we come to the fundamental point of differ- 
ence between the view of the National Service League and 
the once generally accepted view of National Defence. 
We simply do not believe that you can huy national 
safety by any expenditure of mere money, however vast. 
Everything is comparative in these matters. No doubt 
our expenditure on Defence is very great and very onerous, 
but so is the expenditure of other nations. It is idle to 
think that we can keep pace with them by the power of 
mere money, when they are prepared to spend not only 
their money but themselves. 

What I want to put to you is this question : Would it 



478 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [sept. 26, 

really hurt us if we were to do as they do, and rely for our 
ultimate security upon the personal service of our whole 
able-bodied manhood, irrespective of class ? The question 
of the degree and the nature of the training which every 
able-bodied young man would have to undergo is not one 
that I can go into now. It is not, perhaps, at any time a 
question to be decided by civilians, but rather by military 
experts. But of the broad principle involved, you and I 
can judge as well as any soldier. I say : Would it hurt 
us to do as our great rivals do ? Has it hurt them ? I 
believe I am not singular, I believe I am only asserting 
what nine out of every ten experienced travellers will 
confirm, when I say that the great military nations of the 
Continent have not suffered but have benefited physically, 
morally, socially, from the training of their whole young 
manhood in military exercises and military discipline. 
War is an evil, and a tremendous evil, but military training 
is not. It is a positive benefit to most nations. To none 
that I can imagine would it be a greater benefit than to a 
nation which suffers so much as ours does to-day from the 
congestion of its people in great cities. Neither does military 
training, provided it is general, make for war. On the 
contrary, it has just the opposite effect. There have been 
fewer, far fewer, wars in Europe since nations in arms have 
been substituted for professional armies. A professional 
army cannot be expected to have the same aversion for 
war which a national army, consisting as it does mainly 
of men who have other pursuits, and wish nothing less 
than to see them interrupted, inevitably and invariably 
displays. 

THE CANADIAN CLUB, HALIFAX.— September 26, 1912 

Local and Imperial Politics 

[In the autumn of 1912 Lord Milner, for a second time, visited Canada, 
and was able on this occasion to see something of the Maritime Provinces, 
omitted of necessity from his itinerary of 1908 — see p. 304. The follow- 
ing address was given before the Canadian Club of Halifax. A word on 



I9I2] LOCAL AND IMPERIAL POLITICS 479 

the occasion may be helpful. Recent speeches of other visitors to 
Canada had been resented by some Canadians as tending to interfere 
in Canadian domestic politics. In saying a word on behalf both of 
people not perhaps quite fairly accused, and of the Canadian Club prin- 
ciple of free speech, Lord Milner was led to consider the possibility of 
a general separation of Imperial questions from party politics.] 

The only drawback I know to a visit to Canada, as I 
think I have had occasion to remark before, is that you 
have a habit of taking toll of the passing stranger in the 
form of a speech. And received, as he is everywhere, with 
unfailing kindness, with boundless hospitality, it is always 
difficult and sometimes impossible for him to refuse. And 
yet this tribute is a heavy one to pay, certainly so in my 
own case. 

And now a fresh terror is added to what is to me a suffi- 
ciently alarming process. I gather from the newspapers 
that there have been quite a number of people, especially 
pohtical people, from Great Britain travelling over here 
this year. And they have been making speeches (often 
no doubt, like myself, under compulsion) and some of these 
speeches have not given satisfaction to some people — not 
an altogether surprising fact, for I never did know a speech 
which pleased everybody, unless it was entirely vapid. 

It seems to me that the great merit of the Canadian 
Clubs is that they afford an open forum for men of the 
most various pursuits and the most different views, and 
that it is best to aUow any man who is privileged to address 
them to speak on his own subject, on what he knows best 
and what interests him most. In doing so he may, if he 
is a politician, express very decided opinions. Surely this 
need not in any way detract from what I of aU men esteem 
most highly, and should, if it were my business, fight to 
the death to uphold, namely the absolutely neutral, im- 
partial, non-partisan character of the Club as a club. 
That is perfectly maintained by doing as you already do, 
and giving the same courteous reception and patient hear- 
ing to speakers of opposite opinions. 

It is, of course, possible that some tactless person may 



480 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [sept. 26, 

abuse your hospitality, and at the same time throw away 
the golden chance — and for a politician it is a rare luxury 
— of being able to speak before an unbiassed audience, by 
stating his case extravagantly, intemperately, or by ven- 
turing on ground which he had better avoid — for instance, 
if he is a British speaker, by taking or appearing to take 
sides on Canadian pohtical issues, which he probably does 
not understand, and which any way are no business of 
his. But such errors of judgment are, I fancy, not likely 
to be common. And if they do occur, as they wiU occur 
from time to time — for we are aU fallible mortals, and the 
best of us may stumble, especially on strange ground — it 
is not necessary to make a tragedy of it. Such a tactless 
speaker hurts himself, he hurts his own cause, but he does 
not hurt you or Canada. You can afford to show indul- 
gence to a little indiscretion, and on the whole it is better 
that foolish people should be allowed to make, and haply 
learn by making mistakes, than that aU people, wise and 
foohsh, should be muzzled, or should be so frightened of 
saying the wrong thing that they cannot speak their minds 
with frankness and sincerity. 

Now I think it is not unimportant to come to a good 
understanding on this point in view of what surely hes 
before us in the future. I believe we all desire, people of all 
pohtical parties in every part of the Empire, the develop- 
ment of closer relations between the different states, 
widely separated as they are geographically, of which that 
Empire is composed. Sprung, most of us, from a common 
stock, bound together by ties of race, of history, of tradi- 
tion, imited, all of us, in the desire to maintain certain 
great principles of freedom and good government, we long 
to get over, or at least to minimise to the greatest possible 
extent, the physical obstacles which impede our inter- 
course with one another. To aid us in that we have, in 
our own times, the shrinkage of the world which is due to 
the wonderful modern developments of science. And we 
are only at the beginning of that process. There is a great 
deal more to be done. To take only one instance, I should 



igi2] LOCAL AND IMPERIAL POLITICS 481 

be sorry to think that we shall long rest content with the 
still very imperfect means of communication by steamer 
between Great Britain and these Maritime Provinces. 
This is a personal grievance. The other day, when I wanted 
to come to HaHfax, I was given the choice of going round 
by Boston or going round by Rimouski. I am getting on 
in life, I am sorry to say, but I still hope to hve to come 
on some future occasion in four or five days straight to 
Nova Scotia. The possibilities of increased trade between 
different parts of the Empire are stupendous, and it is the 
duty of statesmen to do all in their power to develop them. 
But it is not only the interchange of material things on 
which our minds are set : there is a higher side to this ideal 
of closer intercourse. It is the interchange of men, the 
interchange of ideas. ' Multi pertransibunt et augebitur 
scientia.' ' Many-will pass to and fro and knowledge will 
be increased ' — including that most precious kind of know- 
ledge — our knowledge of one another. Every year more 
and more Canadian voices are heard in Great Britain, 
more British voices are heard in Canada. And this is true, 
though necessarily as yet in a less degree, of speakers from 
other British communities. Only the other day some of 
you listened here, and I am very glad of it, to a distin- 
guished Australian speaker, to whom I have myself often 
listened with pleasure. 

Now all this is immensely to our mutual advantage. 
But it is a law of life in this imperfect world' — and perhaps 
in any conceivable world — that there is no gain without 
some loss. And so it happens that this on the whole 
enormously beneficent increase of intercourse is not without 
some drawbacks. When so much is being said, the wrong 
thing wiU sometimes be said, and there will be occasion 
for offence and misunderstanding. But is it not possible 
for us aU to try not too readily to take offence ? Is it not 
better to set down remarks, to which we may perhaps quite 
legitimately object, to ignorance or maladroitness rather 
than to evil intent or dehberate discourtesy ? Let us 
remember that such occasional rubs are inevitable accom- 

2h 



482 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [sept. 26, 

paniments of that closer intercourse, of which we all recog- 
nise the immense value. By aU means let us try to avoid 
treading on one another's toes. But it is better that we 
should occasionally tread on one another's toes than that 
we should always remain at a respectful but wholly unpro- 
fitable distance from one another. 

You see there are a great many things which we people 
of British stock have got to get into the habit of talking 
over quite frankly with one another, on a basis of perfect 
equality, without too much local sensitiveness, and with a 
single eye to the security and greatness — true greatness I 
mean, not only national strength — of our common Empire. 
Some of these problems are very very difficult in them- 
selves. Do not let us make them more so by being touchy, 
or by troubhng ourselves overmuch, whether a particular 
remark of A's or B's was the sort of remark which it was 
quite correct, constitutional and decorous — and all the 
other things one has got to be — for him to make at the 
particular time and on the particular occasion when he 
did make it. 

The great thing after all is to get something done, some- 
thing to defend and promote those common interests of all 
parts of the Empire, of which we have begun to realise the 
magnitude and the transcendent importance. And here 
I may say that, if I am not mistaken, a great change has 
in recent years come over the Imperial question. A great 
development of opinion has taken place, even in the four 
years since I was last in this country, and the task before 
the workers in this field, a body of which I claim to be a 
very old if very humble member, is quite different to-day 
from what it was even as lately as the beginning of the 
present century. Time was when it was our principal 
business to try and make people realise, not specially in 
this country — the apathy and indifference were just as 
prevalent in Great Britain itself — that there was such a 
thing as an Imperial problem, and to point out that the 
several independent states under the British Crown were 
strangely lacking in cohesion, in organisation for common 



I9I2] LOCAL AND IMPERIAL POLITICS 483 

action, and consequently in that strength and security 
which cohesion and organisation alone can give. But now 
aU that is changed. It is no longer necessary to awaken 
interest in the subject. Imperial sentiment is active and 
growing. The problem of this and the immediately future 
years is to direct that force into profitable channels. We 
all want to help one another. The question is, what is the 
best way to do it ? Certainly the way not to do it is to 
allow the question to get mixed up with the local political 
controversies, which divide parties in every one of the self- 
governing communities of the Empire. That it should 
get so mixed up is a real danger, and it is one which we 
ought frankly to recognise, in order that we may be on 
our guard against it. 

Now this danger would not exist, or at any rate it would 
be greatly minimised, if there was a recognised line of 
demarcation between local and Imperial politics, as there 
is, at any rate here in Canada, between provincial and 
national questions, and if there were separate authorities 
for dealing with the one and the other. This considera- 
tion points to the creation of a new body, distinct from all 
existing organs of Government and representative of all 
parts of the Empire, to which the management of Imperial 
affairs should be entrusted. To that solution we may 
ultimately come, but we are not there yet, and the inter- 
vening period is the period of danger. For in that inter- 
vening period common action with regard to Imperial 
affairs can only be achieved by agreement between a number 
of governments, each one of which is a party government, 
exposed to constant attack from the opposite party, and 
is it too much to hope that the course which in the interest 
of the Empire it ought to take, and might wish to take, 
will also always be the course seemingly most calculated 
to serve its paramount purpose, that of keeping itself in 
power. 

Is there any way out of the difficulties which this con- 
dition of things presents ? I must honestly admit that 
I can see no certain way. It has been suggested here in 



484 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [sept. 26, 

Canada that there should be an agreement between the 
leaders on both sides to keep Imperial questions, or a 
particular question of that nature, outside party strife. 
Certainly I sympathise with that idea, and in any one 
state at any one time it may, as I am sure I hope that in 
your case it will, succeed. But, you see, what is wanted 
is something much more than that. It is a permanent 
agreement between the leaders of poHtical parties, not in 
one state but in all the states concerned, and applying not 
to one question but to all questions of a certain character. 
And that, I think, is rather Utopian. But the case is not 
therefore hopeless, even in the present rudimentary con- 
dition of our Imperial machinery. What the politicians 
cannot do of themselves, they may be forced to do, and (to 
be fair to them) be forced to do in many cases not unwill- 
ingly, by the steady permanent pressure of public opinion, 
if it is only strong enough. 

Do not tell me this is impossible, for I have actually 
seen it done. In the Mother Country, where the excesses 
of party spirit are quite as bad as they are here, there is 
one subject of the greatest national importance which has 
for fully ten years past been entirely, or almost entirely, 
kept out of the arena of party strife, and that is the subject 
of foreign policy. In my young days there was nothing 
about which parties in Great Britain quarrelled more 
fiercely, more disastrously. In future it will be very diffi- 
cult to go back to that bad old game of fighting among 
ourselves over the attitude we are to adopt towards foreign 
nations. No doubt there will be lapses, but on the whole 
we are getting, in this matter, into a purer atmosphere. 
And yet the conduct of foreign affairs offers — it always 
must offer — unrivalled opportunities to an Opposition for 
embarrassing a Ministry. Why are these opportunities 
nowadays comparatively so seldom made use of in Great 
Britain ? The reason is simple. It is that, with regard to 
this question, factiousness no longer pays. I do not say 
the Opposition do not criticise or ought not to criticise. 
But any man versed in public affairs can at once recognise 



I9I2] LOCAL AND IMPERIAL POLITICS 485 

the difference between reasonable criticism and factious 
opposition. And that sort of opposition to a foreign poHcy, 
which has been pretty steadily followed for a considerable 
time by Ministries of both parties — the attempt to use a par- 
ticular embarrassment incidental to that policy for the pur- 
pose of turning a government out — would nowadays be so 
unpopular that no wise party leader would encourage it. 
' What man has done man can do,' and if this has been 
possible in Great Britain with regard to foreign policy 
during more than ten years of furious party fighting, it must 
be possible in all parts of the Empire with regard to ques- 
tions affecting the preservation and the welfare of the 
Empire as a whole. And in some ways it is easier to achieve 
such a desirable result, where there are a number of separate 
communities all confronted with the same problem, and 
conscious of a common obligation to deal with it. There 
is a certain competition between them as to which will 
show itself capable of dealing with that problem most 
effectively. If in any one state of the Empire a question 
like Imperial Defence were to be degraded into the occasion 
for a party fight, and consequently made a mess of, that 
state would come to be regarded as a discredit to the 
Imperial family. And no state would hke to appear in 
that light. 

The line of advance here indicated may be poor comfort 
for ardent spirits. It may not satisfy them. I do not say 
it satisfies me. But I am getting old, and I have learnt to 
be patient. If we can only get some move on now, and a 
move in the right direction, we must make the best of it, 
even if the first step is not a very long one, and if there 
are a good many jolts and bumps on the road. 

Mind you, I put great stress on that condition : any move 
must be in the right direction. Whatever is done, in this 
matter of the Navy for instance, let it be done for the right 
reasons, and done on lines which will make a further advance 
on the road of Imperial Union possible at a later date. 
Some people in this Dominion are inclined to say : ' Let 
us do something quickly and have done with it.' And I 



486 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 2, 

too say, do something quickly, but don't imagine that 
you will ever have done with it. If the Empire is your 
Empire as much as ours, then your participation in the 
defence of it, and in the control of it, which is now, I hope, 
beginning, can never have an end as long as the Empire 
itself endures. I appreciate the generous sentiment which 
says ' the Mother Country has an awfuUy tough job to 
carry alone the burden of Empire : let us do something 
to help her.' That is excellent as far as it goes, but it does 
not go far enough. It is not from gratitude, or at any 
rate not only from gratitude, but from reasoned convic- 
tion, not for her — for the Mother Country — or at least 
not only for the Mother Country, but for the sake of 
the greater whole, of which both Great Britain and 
Canada are simply parts, that whatever you may do 
should be done. 

For my own part I rejoiced greatly, as I beheve the 
vast majority of people in Great Britain rejoiced, at Mr. 
Borden's declaration that Canada did not mean to be an 
adjunct even of the Mother Country. And on this vital 
point I am glad to think that there is no room for difference 
between Canadian parties, if your leading statesmen truly 
represent the popular mind. For this is in essence just 
the same as what Sir Wilfrid Laurier had said on a pre- 
vious occasion, when he used the memorable words, 'If you 
want our help, call us to your councils.' If this is the 
spirit in which Canadians approach the question, they will 
find the people of Great Britain prepared to meet them 
more than half-way. Any British Government which 
failed to respond to such an advance, and to respond to 
it whole-heartedly, would very soon find itself out of office. 
If the hearts of the two peoples beat in unison, woe to the 
statesman, no not the statesman, but the misguided poli- 
tician, who ventured to stand in the way. 



I9I2] EMPIRE CITIZENSHIP 487 

AUTHORS CLUB.— December 2, 1912 

Empire Citizenship 

It is a great honour to be invited to initiate a discussion at 
the Authors Club. At the same time I must admit to 
you that the choice of a topic has caused me no little per- 
plexity. It has been suggested to me, quite privately 
and unofficially, that an appropriate subject for one who, 
like myself, has at one time been a writer for the Press, and 
at another time, and for a much longer period, an Imperial 
official, would be ' Journalism and the Empire.' Well, 
gentlemen, I do not know that there is any coherent series 
of ideas which I feel capable of arranging under that head- 
ing. I will ask you to give me a little more latitude than 
that theme, as I understand it, would afford. But I take 
the hint to this extent, that I wiU confine my remarks to 
one aspect of the great subject of Imperial Union, an aspect 
often neglected, but which should, I think, appeal especially 
to men of letters, and therefore — as the greater includes 
the less — to aU journalists who take a high view, and it 
is the only right view, of their profession. 

Let me define what I mean by Imperial Union. I mean 
something which at present does not exist, or exists only 
in an embryonic or rudimentary form. I mean a real 
Empire State with its necessary concomitant, an Empire 
citizenship. Many people, I know, and even many people 
who are very far from being out of sympathy with all 
Imperial ideals, do not regard that as the true fine of 
development. They look forward rather to a progressive 
relaxation of the political bonds, such as they are, which 
at present hold the Empire together, to a union, or rather 
a relationship, maintained solely by ties of sympathy and 
affection. Whether they think such a development desir- 
able, or simply inevitable, I am not quite clear. But at 
any rate I differ from them. I think that the tendency 
is, and that it ought to be, in another direction, that is to 
say, towards closer organic union. My ideal is a common 



488 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 2, 

citizenship, which is something different from, something 
more than, a sense of blood-relationship and a community 
of language and sentiment, such as may exist, and happily 
often does exist, between peoples belonging to different 
bodies-politic, as for instance between the Austrian Germans 
and the Germans of the German Empire, or the British 
people and the people of the United States. 

But I am not going to-night to enter into any contro- 
versy on this subject, or to attempt to compare the merits 
of these different ideals. I simply want to dwell, and that 
very briefly, upon one feature of Imperial Union — in my 
sense of that phrase — which is frequently forgotten. When 
the advocates of a United Empire sum up its advantages, 
they dwell mainly on two points. The first is the greater 
strength and security which would result if all the military 
and naval forces of the Empire, present and future, were 
controlled by a single authority. The second is the economic 
argument for Union, well expressed by an American friend 
of mine who, contemplating, as a friendly outsider, the 
varied and mutually complementary resources of different 
parts of the Empire, summed it up as 'a first-rate busi- 
ness proposition.' And certainly I should be the last man 
to question the immense importance of either of these 
considerations. But that is not the whole story. Even 
in an era of universal peace, even if not only wars but 
tariff wars were to be absolutely abandoned, I should still 
remain an Imperialist. I should still want my country 
to be the greatest in the world, by which I do not mean 
the biggest. It is not mere size that I am thinking of, 
though size has its value. No, but greatest, let me say, 
in the amplitude and variety of its resources, and in that 
which material resources are only the means to, in its 
civilisation, its achievement, the spirit and character of 
its people. 

Yes. But what is my country ? An easy question, you 
might think, to answer. And so it is for most members of 
the human race. But it is not altogether so easy for any 
subject of His Majesty King George v. May I be allowed 



I9I2] EMPIRE CITIZENSHIP 489 

to say how I personally should be disposed to answer it ? 
The fine saying ' the Empire is my country ' is not a phrase 
of my coining, though it precisely expresses what I feel. 
It is the phrase of a Canadian Imperiahst, who is not a 
less loyal or devoted Canadian on that account, I can 
see, as Mr. Balfour well said the other night, no antagonism 
whatever between the two patriotisms. The Germans have 
a good expression to meet a somewhat similar situation. 
They talk of the ' narrower ' and the ' wider ' Fatherland, 
meaning by the former Prussia or Saxony or Bavaria, or 
whatever it may be, and by the latter the whole German 
Empire. That seems to me, mutatis mutandis, to be applic- 
able to our own case. My hope is that a day may come 
when the words ' the Empire is my country ' will not be a 
hard saying to any civilised man, I don't care what the 
colour of his skin, in any part of it ; when those words will 
express his real feehng ; when, over and above his local 
and racial patriotism, he will recognise that his highest 
allegiance is to the Empire as a whole. To that end it is 
necessary, at least in my view, that the Empire should be 
a real State, and not merely a number of separate, more 
or less closely associated communities under a common 
sovereign. Obviously we are still very far from such a 
condition of things, though, as I have said, I beheve the 
tendency is towards it and not away from it. But my 
point is this, that its attainment is desirable, nay more, 
that it is the highest of all possible objects of poHtical 
endeavour, not only for the sake of greater strength and 
security, or of ampler and better assured economic develop- 
ment, but for a higher reason still, for the sake of what I 
can only call the greater spiritual content of the wider 
patriotism. 

Let me illustrate what I mean by this somewhat too 
abstract and not very happily worded statement. What, 
after all, do we mean by patriotism ? Without being too 
metaphysical, I suppose that a feehng of pride in one's 
country, a sense of the privilege of belonging to a land of 
' just and old renown,' with a great history and great 



490 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 2, 

traditions, and the resulting desire and impulse to preserve 
and haply enhance that heritage — these things surely are 
of the essence of patriotism. And among the nobler 
motives of human action it is one of the most potent, and, 
despite its occasional excesses, one of the most beneficent. 
But patriotism is a rope of many strands, and the various 
elements which make it up appeal in very different pro- 
portions to different minds. With one man it is the heroism 
of our warriors and explorers ; with another the genius 
of our great writers ; with another the beauty of the land 
itseff, enhanced by the art and care of many generations ; 
with yet another its contribution to human progress in 
raising the standard of justice and humanity, and in setting 
an example of orderly freedom and constitutional govern- 
ment, which does most to nourish his pride in, and attach- 
ment to, his country. But among the numerous influences 
which combine to create and sustain that noble pride and 
attachment, in us Britons, it is surely impossible not to 
assign a very high place to respect for the efforts and sacri- 
fices which have built up the Empire. There are many 
blots on the pages of history which record that achieve- 
ment, as there are on its other pages. But when all the 
crimes and follies have been subtracted, there remains 
an immense balance on the right side. It is we who have 
been foremost in opening up the great waste spaces of the 
New World, and filling them with peoples of a high standard 
of civilisation. It is we who have brought peace and 
justice, and given orderly and humane government, to 
hundreds of millions of the weaker or more backward races 
of the earth, and put an end to the secular welter of blood- 
shed and oppression. These new lands of immense pro- 
mise inhabited by men of our race, these ancient lands 
restored to order and civiHsation by our agency, are the 
two great moral assets of Imperiahsm. It is this aspect 
of the Empire, not its size nor the number of its inhabitants, 
nor the sum of its imports and exports, which gives dignity 
to the wider patriotism, which makes it such a source of 
inspiration and such a stimulus to lofty effort. Would it 



I9I2] EMPIRE CITIZENSHIP 491 

be the same thing, should we be the same people, if the 
Empire were only a memory, a glorious tradition of the 
past, and our poUtical horizon were bounded by the shores 
of these islands ? 

Now what I have just said was spoken from the point 
of view of one whose ' narrower Fatherland ' is the United 
Kingdom. How does all this look from the other side ? 
Can the idea of Imperial patriotism, the sense of member- 
ship of the Empire, have the same depth of meaning, be 
the same source of inspiration to the Canadian or Australian 
as to the Englishman, Irishman or Scotsman ? Why 
should it not ? The men who made the Empire were their 
ancestors as much as yours or mine. The call to maintain 
and improve it, the whole of it, not only one's own particular 
corner, is as loud to them as it is to you and me. They 
may not always have responded to it, and very naturally, 
for distance and the mass of work immediately confronting 
them in huge new countries, absorbing as it did all their 
energy and interest, have had their narrowing effect. 
Immediate needs were so many and urgent, the local 
horizon was so vast, that it is no wonder that they could 
not look, as many of them still cannot look, beyond it. 
But even then Imperial feeling was only latent ; it was not 
dead. From time to time it showed unmistakable signs 
of vitality. And now that distance is so greatly diminished 
by the triumphs of science, that the most urgent needs of 
civilised life have been supplied, and that with the growth 
of prosperity there is more leisure, more culture, more interest 
in other than purely material things, the development of 
the wider patriotism is likely to assume proportions which 
very few of us have dreamt of. Indeed it would not sur- 
prise me if in the near future that sentiment were to become 
a more potent force in the over-sea Dominions than it is 
here. And if that does come about, it will not be solely, or 
mainly, from a sense of the material advantages of the 
Imperial connection. It will not be solely, or mainly, because 
the over-sea Briton feels the need of protection against 
external aggression (which in many cases he does not), or 



492 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 2. 

because he appreciates the preference which he actually 
enjoys in the money market of Great Britain, and may 
perhaps hope to enjoy some day in other markets also. 
These influences exist, no doubt, and they count for some- 
thing. But there is another spirit at work which counts 
for more. It is his feeling of pride in his birthright, in 
his membership of a great, a historic and a world-wide 
State, so various in the character of its different parts, so 
rich in opportunities, with so imposing a record in the past, 
and such ilHmitable possibihties in the future. And that 
feehng will take the form of a claim, a claim the justice 
of which is indisputable, not only for the entire control 
of his local affairs — he has got that already — ^but for a 
voice in the control of Imperial affairs. Of course such 
aspirations, if they are to be realised, involve a complete 
overhauling of our present chaotic system, and the creation 
of an Imperial constitution. But that is just what the 
Imperialism of the Dominions, if it follows the line which 
I have indicated, is going to bring about. 

Only one more remark in conclusion. I may be told 
that what I have just said, if true at all, can only be true 
of that portion of the inhabitants of the Empire who are 
of British race. But the people of British race are not a 
majority even in all the self-governing Dominions, whilst 
in India and the other dependencies they are only an in- 
finitesimal fraction of the population. The rest, it may be 
said, can have no attachment to the Empire other than that 
arising from a sense of the material advantages which it 
secures to them. There can be no question in their case 
of the growth of Imperial patriotism. Well, I am aware 
that that is the common, as it is the natural, view. But I 
am not at all sure that it is the right view. Certainly I am 
the last person to question the importance of the racial 
bond. Without it there would be no British Empire. But 
I do not admit that Imperial patriotism of a kind may not 
be developed among the races that are not of British origin. 
Perhaps it wiU never be of the fervid type, but to say that 
is not to say that it must be based on purely material con- 



I9I2] EMPIRE CITIZENSHIP 493 

siderations. Given complete equality of status with their 
British fellow-countrymen, they may not be insensible of 
the dignity of their position as citizens of the Empire, or 
unwilling to share in its burdens and its glory. I can 
imagine the French Canadians, for instance, under certain 
conditions, becoming in this sense quite sound Imperialists, 
as some of them are already. Indeed, I go further. It 
would be a mistake to undervalue the attachment to the 
Empire which undoubtedly exists even among the subject 
races of India and Africa, however crude and childhke 
may be, must be in the majority of the people, their com- 
ception of what the Empire is. I have certainly had 
occasion myself to realise the strength of that sentiment in 
some of the African tribes, and I believe that it exists — 
though here I do not speak from personal experience — in 
the mass of the people of India. No doubt among a portion 
of the educated classes of that country there is not only 
no feeling of attachment to the Empire, but on the contrary 
indifference, estrangement, even bitter hostility. But even 
if these feelings were more widespread among them than, as 
far as I can judge, they actually are, I should still not despair 
of the future of Imperial patriotism in India. Changes, 
which are bound gradually to come about in the govern- 
ment of that country — changes giving a wider scope to 
native ability and ambition — coupled with what I for one 
hope for, though I know how difficult it is to accomplish — a 
complete removal of the disabilities and indignities to 
which even the most highly civilised Indians are at present 
liable in some of the white communities of the Empire — 
would, I am convinced, effect a momentous change in 
Indian sentiment. 

But here I touch on the fringe of a very thorny problem, 
and I have already detained you too long, and raised more 
than enough points of controversy for a single evening. 
Let me only say, that I consider it a great privilege to have 
been allowed to engage, for much longer, I fear, than the 
statutory period, the attention of the Authors Club, and 
that I hope the ideas which I have put before you, though 



494 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 9, 

perhaps rather nebulously expressed, will not be found 
unworthy of a place in your thoughts and in your sym- 
pathies. 

EAST LONDON.— December 9, 1912 
The Two Nations 
[An addressed delivered at Toynbee Hall.] 
It is eighteen years since I last addressed an audience in 
Toynbee Hall, and during almost the whole of that time 
my business in life has removed me very far from the kind 
of activities which centre in this institution, though I have 
never lost my interest in them. Only quite recently, since 
the Council did me the honour to elect me their chairman, 
have I begun to take up again the threads of an old acquaint- 
ance. I feel that I have too Httle experience in that posi- 
tion to be entitled to speak in any representative capacity. 
If anything I may say to-night appears to you unsuitable 
or wide of the mark, you must hold me alone responsible. 
The last thing I wish to do is to commit my colleagues or 
the members of this Association by what is merely an 
expression of my individual feeUngs and opinions. 

There are various points of view from which the work of 
this or any similar Settlement may be regarded. It appeals 
to different people on different grounds. I shall confine 
myself to one aspect of it which appeals most strongly to 
me personally, without wishing to suggest that there are 
not other and perhaps more important aspects. The 
object of the Universities Settlement Association is defined 
in the Memorandum as follows : — 

' To provide education and the means of recreation and 
enjoyment for the people of the poorer districts of London and 
other great cities : to inquire into the condition of the poor, 
and to consider and advance plans calculated to promote their 
welfare.' 

No one can deny that these are excellent and very com- 
prehensive objects. And yet I do not know that they 



I9I2] THE TWO NATIONS 495 

cover all the ground. I should like to add one other 
paragraph — not at all inconsistent with the words I have 
just read, but rather supplementary to them — a paragraph 
somewhat to this effect : 

' To provide a meeting-place and opportunities for better 
mutual knowledge and sympathy between people of different 
classes and occupations, and to strengthen in them all the 
sense of their common citizenship.' 

A great statesman and writer, Benjamin Disraeli, gave 
to one of his novels, Syhil, which appeared about seventy 
years ago, the sub-title The Two Nations. The idea which 
prompted that title, in itself a very familiar idea, as old 
as the hills, was the contrast between the extremes of 
wealth and poverty and the estrangement of class from 
class. This contrast, great enough in every age, in every 
civihsed country, was exceptionally strong in England 
when Sybil was written, and the consequent resentment 
and spirit of revolt appeared to many even cool-headed 
observers to threaten a cataclysm. I am convinced myself 
that there has been, in the interval which has elapsed since the 
pubhcation of Syhil, a great change for the better in economic 
and social conditions — not that the contrast presented by 
the extremes is any less glaring, but because there is so much 
more between the extremes, and the proportion, if not the 
actual numbers, of people living in really degrading poverty, 
has been greatly reduced. But I don't know that the 
estrangement of class from class has been correspondingly 
diminished. The idea of The Two Nations — always of 
course a hterary generalisation : it could not have stood 
scientific analysis at any time — has as strong a hold upon 
the minds of men, and perhaps as large an element of truth, 
as it ever had. If you look, for instance, at a book Hke 
Mr. Stephen Reynolds's Seems So, an interesting and able 
record of personal experience, you wiU be struck by its 
insistence on the growth of a class consciousness among 
all those who live by the work of their hands in the most 
various industries, on their collective sense of the injustice 



496 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 9, 

of the present social order, and on the barrier which that 
sentiment creates between them and the rest of their 
fellow-countrymen. A somewhat similar, but much more 
bitter and exasperated state of feeUng, is described in my 
friend Mr. Fabian Ware's recent book, The Worker and 
his Country, as existing in France. And the evidences of 
it are numerous and strong in almost all civilised countries. 

No doubt the conception of The Two Nations in its modern 
form differs somewhat from that of Disraeh. The contrast, 
the antagonism, is now not so much between Wealth and 
Poverty as between all wage-earners, many of whom are 
raised far above the level of poverty, and all those who 
derive their income from property, interest or profits, many 
of whom again are far from rich. But whatever the form 
of it, good citizens must deplore the existence, or the belief 
in the existence, of two nations in one country. Enmity 
between nations is bad, but enmity between sections of the 
same nation is worse. I am not one of those who think 
that what is known as the solidarity of the workers of all 
nations, the substitution of class divisions for national or 
racial divisions, is going to ensure international peace or 
to promote the happiness of mankind. I believe in develop- 
ment on national lines, and I beheve in the mission of my 
country, of the British race — that it stands for something 
distinctive and priceless in the onward march of humanity. 
My chief reason for detesting any form of social cleavage, 
I don't say it is my only reason, is that it weakens my 
country. Among civilised peoples of more or less equal 
size, that one will be, as it will deserve to be, the strongest, 
which is most successful in removing the causes of class 
antagonism in its midst. It will be the least vulnerable 
by external aggression, the most capable of influencing 
the future development of the world. It wuU take the lead 
in the rivalry, not necessarily a hostile rivalry, of nations, 
which, with all its deplorable excesses, is one of the greatest 
factors in human progress. 

We are all familiar with one panacea for class antagonism, 
which is the abolition of classes — all property pubhc property, 



^ 



I9I2] THE TWO NATIONS 497 

every child bom in the country born to an equal right to and 
an equal share in it. Ideas of this kind also are of a most 
venerable antiquity. Some people, looking back over the 
centuries, and seeing how long they have existed and how 
little has come of them, regard them as wholly impracticable 
or even as mischievous delusions . Others still think that their 
reahsation is within measurable distance. Very likely both 
opinions are represented in this room. I am not going to 
plunge into that controversy, or any controversy if I can 
help it, to-night. But perhaps I may carry all, or almost 
all of my audience with me when I say that this ideal, if 
attainable at all, is only attainable as the result of a long 
process ; that it presupposes an immense change, which 
must necessarily be very gradual, in the whole mental and 
moral attitude of the average man ; and that, without such 
a change, the collectivist millennium, if by some miracle it 
could be realised to-morrow, would never endure. And as 
I am neither a prophet nor a philosopher, I prefer to con- 
fine myself to what can be done here and now, and to speak 
from the standpoint of those who, accepting provisionally 
the present structure of society, disbelieving in revolution, 
but believing in the possibility of a gradual elevation of the 
moral standard of the community, are prepared to trust 
to that for the improvement of social conditions. Less 
and less, I think, as one grows older, is one disposed to pin 
one's faith on drastic pohtical action, more and more to 
trust to moral influences for the advancement of the mass 
of the people. As I look back on the progress, great though 
inadequate, which has undoubtedly been made in many 
directions even in my own hfetime, it seems to me that what 
has been wrested by pressure and threats is not compar- 
able to what has been conceded by the awakened conscience 
of those in possession. Many fortresses of privilege have 
fallen because their defenders had lost faith in the justice 
of their own cause. And, on the other hand, what the 
nation as a whole has gained from the abandonment of 
privilege, from the greater diffusion of political power or 
of material prosperity, must be measured by the degree in 

2i 



498 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 9. 

which these new advantages have been turned to good 
account. Better wages, more leisure, easier access to know- 
ledge, may all be used or abused. Broadly speaking, I 
think it may be said that the working classes of Great 
Britain — at any rate the great central mass — have shown 
themselves capable of making good use of whatever they 
have won. If I am right in that view, it is inevitable — as 
inevitable as it is greatly to be desired — that the influences 
which have carried them thus far, will carry them still 
further. I have no time to give many illustrations. But 
perhaps I may be allowed in this place to refer to what the 
wage-earners have done for themselves in the way of 
making use of increased educational facilities. The Workers 
Educational Association is becoming a power in the land, 
and doing more, I believe, for genuine mental culture 
among its members than all the year-long efforts of well- 
intentioned outsiders. There is thus a great deal of material 
on both sides for better mutual understanding and sympathy. 
If the wage-earners could recognise what they have owed 
to the finer spirits among the powerful, the wealthy and 
the highly educated ; if the majority of the weU-to-do, 
instead of seeing only the worse side of the upward struggle 
of the working classes, could learn to appreciate the nucleus 
of civic virtue which is to be found in their increased self- 
respect and self-reliance, in their capacity for sticking 
together, and in their longing for a less narrow and mono- 
tonous life, it would go a long way to make us a more 
united people. I do not say that this is all that is required 
— far from it — to break down the barrier between class 
and class, but at any rate it would be a good beginning. 
We should have created an atmosphere more favourable 
than the present to the gradual acceptance of those social 
changes, which are still necessary if we are to remove the 
reproach that we are two nations. We should have much 
more fraternity at any rate, though we might still be very far 
from equality. But then I am not sure that perfect equality 
of material conditions is such a desirable goal after all. I 
can conceive a state of things in which — ^with the disappear- 



I9I2] THE TWO NATIONS 499 

ance of degrading poverty and of the grosser cases of in- 
equality of remuneration — ^the problem of the distribution 
of wealth would no longer be the obsession which it at 
present is to many minds. We should not worry so much 
about it. We should think less of the differences of fortune 
which still remained, and more of those things which we 
could all enjoy in common, the higher goods of life, which 
need no great wealth for their attainment. The beauties 
of nature and art, the wonders of science, the vast treasure- 
house of good hterature now so easily accessible, are all 
such common ground. Love for these things always makes 
for social peace and harmony, just as exclusive attention 
to the purely material side of life always makes for 
bitterness and discord. And among these supreme things, 
which we all have in common, you must allow me to 
place our national history and our great national heritage 
— all the heroism, all the genius, all the enterprise, the 
endurance, the labour, the devotion, which have gone to 
make our country what it is ; her triumphs in the domains 
of art and science ; her leadership in the cause of justice, 
freedom and humanity ; the position of immense power and 
influence which she holds in the world, and the duties which 
that position involves . Are not these the common possession, 
as they should be the common pride and common stimulus 
to high endeavour, of every man and woman in this land ? 
Is all I have just said too Utopian ? I admit I have been 
talking ideals, but idealism of some kind, not necessarily 
mine, is in keeping with the atmosphere of this place. The 
man whose name it bears was an idealist if ever there was one. 
But he was also a very practical reformer. He had high 
aims, but he was penetrated with the conviction that nothing 
was more sterile than mere vague enthusiasm. Nothing — so 
he thought — could be accomplished in the way of social pro- 
gress without knowledge, first-hand personal knowledge, of the 
particular conditions with which you were deahng, and, above 
all, of the habits of mind of the people you wished to influ- 
ence. Intimate intercourse between men of different environ- 
ment — the employer and the workman, the student and the 



600 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES [dec. 9. 1912] 

man of afifairs — ^intercourse devoid of patronage or conde- 
scension, was what he beheved in and practised. And 
it never occurred to him that the benefit was anything 
but mutual. I do not doubt that those who have followed 
in his footsteps here have been impressed with the truth 
of his ideas. They believe that they have something to 
give to East London. But I think the most successful 
of them would be the readiest to say that they get more 
than they give — ^an acquaintance, not to be gained from 
books, with the actual life of large classes of their fellow- 
countrymen, and with ways of looking at things with which 
they were previously unfamiliar. But knowledge begets 
sympathy, and sympathy is the golden key which opens a 
way to the solution of many problems that are a hopeless 
puzzle to the mere theorist and book-man. Political 
economy, as it was taught in my youth, could never have 
emanated from the minds of men in actual touch with the 
people. It was the product of the study and the counting- 
house. If our methods of handling economic and social 
problems have become humanised, and promise a richer 
harvest of results, that change is largely due to socio- 
logical workshops such as this, and to the influence of the 
men who have graduated in them. 



INDEX 



Africa : 

Development of British Crown 

Colonies, 461-469. 
Rhodesia, South Africa, Trans- 
vaal, etc. See those titles. 
Afrikander Bond. See Bond, The. 
Agricultural Journal of the Trans- 
vaal, appreciation by experts, 
109. 
Agriculture : 

Development in South Africa 
after the war, 87, 336-338, 
468. 
Improvement of, in United King- 
dom, 411-412, 449-450. 
Amery, L. S., M.P., support by 
Lord Milner at Wolverhampton, 
152. 
Army : 

Co-operation of the Colonies for 
mutual defence, 323-327, 369- 
370, 376-378. 
Eulogy of South African Field 

Force, 59-60. 
National Service proposals. See 

National Service. 
Proportion to sea power necessary, 
470-478. 
Asiatics, colonial prejudice against, 

296-298. 
Asquith, Mr. : 

Increase of death duties, 394. 
Liberal programme 1909, 429-435. 
Misconception of Tarilf Reform, 

245. 
Speech at dinner to Lord Milner 
in 1897, 1. 
Australia : 

Citizen defence force proposed, 

156. 
New tariff, and outcry against, 202. 
Preferential tariff for British 
goods, value of, 202. 
Authors Club, speech on Empire 
Citizenship (1912), 487-494. 



Bain, Mr., on preference given by 
Canada to British goods, 344- 
345. 
Balfour, Mr. : 

Relations to Unionist party, 210- 

211. 
On patriotism, 489. 
Bantu tribes, adaptability to differ- 
ent altitudes, 224. 
Barnes, G. N., M.P., 254. 
Barotseland, native rights, 231. 
Basutoland, boundaries and their 

political importance, 221. 
Bath, speech on Preparation against 

War (1909), 374-380. 
Beaconsfield, Lord : 

As a party leader, 210-211. 
Sub-title to Sybil, 495. 
Bismarck, Prince, quoted, 183. 
Bloemfontein, Conference between 
Sir A. Milner and President 
Kruger, 12-16. 
Boers : 

Attitude towards, advised, 81-83. 
British generosity misunderstood, 

181. 
Improvement since the war, 283. 
Leaders' efforts to foment dis- 
satisfaction after the war, 96-97. 
Boer War : 

Annexation of Boer republics 
urged by Cape Colony Non- 
conformists, 16-19. 
Canadian aid, 309, 311. 
Essential conditions of peace, 

speech, 40-41. 
Eulogy of British Army, 59-60. 
Exaggerated statements of the 

Bond, 29, 31-32. 
German hostility to British, 61-62. 
Guerilla warfare phase, 26, 28, 48, 

50-51. 
Lessons to be learnt from, 166, 

188-189, 193, 472-473. 
Magnanimity counselled, 18-19. 
601 



502 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



Boer War {cont. ) : 

Measures to ensure termination 

discussed, 50-53. 
Negotiations in February 1901, 

33, 34. 
Rebellion in Cape Colony, 32- 

33. 
Respect for the Boers, 21. 
Worcester Congress Resolutions, 

28-29. 
Bond, The : 

Attacks on Sir A. Mihier, 21, 26, 

28, 29. 
Danger to South Africa, 101. 
Seditious agitation caused by, 26- 

29. 
Warned by Sir A. Milner in 1898, 

6-11. 
Worcester Congress Resolutions, 

28-32. 
Borden, Mr., on attitude of Canada 

to the Mother Country, 486. 
Botha, General : 

Dislike of Land Settlement policy 

of Lord Milner, 126. 
Effect of his moderate policy on 

his followers, 180-181, 182. 
Negotiations in February 1901, 33, 

34. 
Reference to, 54. 
Bristol, taxation eating up capital, 

speech, 380-381. 
British Colmnbia, importance in 

world history, 305. 
British Empire : 

Council of the Empire, urgent 

necessity for, 299-300. 
Empire Education Scheme, 171- 

173. 
Ideal of, 90-91. 

Imperial Unity. See that title. 
Meaning of the term, 311. 
Responsibility for dependent 

states, extension to self-govern- 
ing colonies, 294-300. 
Retention and development of 

dependent states, 292-294. 
Two types of state, the dependent 

and the self-governing, 290- 

292. 
Brodrick, Mr. See Midleton, Vis- 
count. 
Browning, Robert, quoted, 77. 
Bucknill, Mr., report referred to, 137. 
Budget, 1909 : 

Duty of the House of Lords to 

reject, 400-401. 



Budget, 1909 (cont.): 

Objections frora finance point of 

view, 405-410, 440-445. 
Speech in House of Lords, 390- 

400. 
Statement of reasons for opposing, 

419-420. 

Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duke of, 

at luncheon to Lord Milner, 36. 
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry : 

Mentions of, 93, 99. 

The Volkstem on his opinion of the 
Boer War, 181. 
Canada : 

Big issue of the future, 364-365. 

Commercial treaty with France, 
201-202, 274-275. 

Commercial treaty with Germany, 
430. 

Comparison with South Africa, 
330-341. 

Confederation and development 
of patriotism, 4, 304-310, 312. 

Co-operation withMother Country 
for mutual defence, 485-486. 

Imperial questions, dissociation 
from party politics, suggestion, 
483-486. 

Imperial ixnity, external benefits, 
302-310, 310-313 ; internal 
benefits, 310, 313-319 ; prac- 
tical suggestions, 320-330. 

Interference in domestic affairs by 
visitors, 479-482. 

Permanent Colonial Commission, 
unfavourable reception of sug- 
gestion, 151. 

Precedent for treatment of South 
Africa, important difference, 
179. 

Preferential rates, principle of, 
and reasons for, 342-352 ; value 
to British trade, 185, 273. 

Social work, need of women's 
influence, 354-358. 
Canadian Clubs, speeches at : 

Halifax, Local and Imperial Poli- 
tics, 478-486. 

Montreal, Conditions of Closer 
Union, 359-365. 

Ottawa, South African Develop- 
ment, 330-341. 

Toronto, Imperial Unity, Practi- 
cal Suggestions, 320-330. 

Vancouver, Imperial Unity — Ex- 
ternal Advantages, 302-310. 



INDEX 



503 



Canadian Cluba, speeches at (cont.) : 
Winnipeg, Imperial Unity — In- 
ternal Advantages, 310-319. 
Canterbury, speech at National 
Service League meeting, 469- 
478. 
Cape Colony : 

Bond's domination, dangers, 101. 
Injustice caused by British 
Government's policy, 280-282. 
Land owned by British Admiralty, 

133. 
Sedition and rebellion in, 1900- 

1901, 26-28, 32-33. 
Worcester Congress Resolutions, 
29. 
Cape Town : 

Cathedral, appeal for building 

fund, 260-263. 
Civic Receptions, 1901, speeches, 

32-35, 41-42. 
Place among the cities of the 
Empire, 261-262, 
Capital : 

Competition for, and effect of 

preferential trade on, 346. 
Present taxation injurious to 

wealth, 380-381, 393-396. 
Resistance to spoliation foretold, 
409-410. 
Cardiff Election meeting, 1909, 

speech, 438-451. 
Carpenter, Mr. Boyd, on necessity 

for a Second Chamber, 427. 
Carr, Mr., mentioned, 58. 
Casual labour, fiscal reform as a 

remedy, 301-302. 
Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph : 

Entertainment to Lord Milner on 

Empire Day (1906), 117. 
Farewell dinner to Lord Milner 

(1897), 1. 
Imperial policy, tribute to, 122- 

123, 461, 462. 
Initiator of Tariff Reform move- 
ment, 200, 244, 371. 
Proposal to tax foreign wheat, 

185-186. 
Welcome to Lord Mihier (1901), 

35. 
Mention, 240. 
Chartered Company : 

Claims on our gratitude, 233. 
Control exercised by British 
Government, 231. 
Chatham, WiUiam Pitt, Earl of, 
Lord Rosebery on, 121-122. 



Chinese Labour : 

Difficulties caused by Liberal 
Government's interference, 137- 
138, 176-178. 
Misapprehensions refuted, 93, 104- 
106. 
Church House, Westminster, Chm-ch 
Railway Mission, speech, 163-164. 
Church of England : 

Missionary work, speeches, 63-65, 

163-164, 413-416. 
Welsh Disestablishment and Dis- 
endowment, 431. 
Civil Service, interchange of service 
between the Colonies and the 
Mother Coiuitry, suggestions, 
327-328. 
Class feeling, causes and sugges- 
tions for improving, 495-500. 
Clinton, Lord, mention, 401. 
Coats, J. & P., Ltd., the chairman 

on import duties, 423. 
Cobdenites. See Free Trade. 
Colonial Conference, 1907. See Im- 

PERiAX Conference. 
Colonial Institute, speech, 289-300. 
Colonial Office, separate office for 
administration of different types 
of colonies suggested, 291. 
Colonies : 

Co-operation with Mother Country 
for defence, suggestions, 66-67, 
323-327, 369-370, 376-378, 388, 
485-486. 
Development of the Crown Colo- 
nies, 461-469. 
Different types of, 290-292. 
Imperial patriotism ideal, 491- 

494. 
Importance of Crown Colonies 
due to natural products, 463- 
466. 
Preferential trade with : advan- 
tages to Mother Country dis- 
cussed, 201-204, 207, 270-279; 
alleged injury to India, 267-270; 
cause of increase of goodwill, 
277-278 ; as counterbalancing 
foreign competition, 425-426 ; 
principles involved in, 239-243 ; 
proposal for Unionist party 
to relinquish policy, 459-461 ; 
proposals at Imperial Confer- 
ence rejected, 183-185, 201, 
239 ; reasons for, and sugges- 
tions, 145-151 ; a saving policy 
for the Empire. 378-380, 



504 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



Colonies (cont.) : 

Responsibility for dependent 
states of the Empire to be ex- 
tended to self-governing colo- 
nies, suggestion, 294-300. 
Share in control of foreign policy 
of the Empire, suggested, 311- 
312. 
Union with the Mother Country. 
See IivtPERiAL Unity. 
Compatriots Club : 

' Communis Patria,' speech, 386- 

388. 
Imperial organisation speech, 452- 
461. 
Compulsory Service. See under 

NATiONAii Service. 
Constabulary of South Africa. See 
South Africak Constabitlary. 
Constitution (British) : 

House of Lords accused of in- 
fringing, refutation, 402-408. 
Liberal Government posing as 
defenders of, 402-404. 
Constitutional Club, speech, 300-302. 
Cook, Sir E. T., quoted, 13. 
Courtney, Lord, dislike of Im- 
perialism, 153. 
Cromer, Lord, mention, 267. 
Crown Colonies. See under 

Colonies. 
Curzon, Lord : 

Entertainment of Lord Milner on 

Empire Day (1906), 117. 
Farewell dinner to Lord Milner 

(1897), 6. 
Lecture on ' Frontiers ' at Ox- 
ford, 220. 
Customs Duties. See Import 
Duties and Tariff Reform. 

Davidson, Randall, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, mention, 413. 

Deakin, Mr., preferential tariff pro- 
moted by, 202, 240. 

Deane, Miss, on work of Industrial 
Law Committee, 382, 383, 384. 

Death Duties, arguments against 
increasing, 393-396. 

Democracy, judgment on Imperial 
affairs open to error, 247-249. 

Denison, Colonel G. T., entertained 
by Compatriots Club, 386. 

De Wet, General, mention, 54. 

Dunedin, Lord, president at Royal 
Scottish Geographical Society's 
meeting (1907), 218. 



Durban : 

Conference on Federation of 

South Africa, 339. 
Speech by Lord Milner (1901), 44- 

48. 

East Africa : 

Development of Crown Colonies, 
462-465. 

Railway construction, 466. 
East and North of Scotland Liberal 

Unionist Association, speech 

(1907), 234-243. 
East Dorset Conservative and 

Unionist Association, speech, 

388-390. 
Ebden, Mr., mention, 12. 
Education : 

Ideal to be aimed at, 161. 

In elementary facts of the British 
Empire, scheme for, 171-173. 

Liberal party's programme (1909), 
431. 
Education Bill, amendment by the 

House of Lords, 447. 
Egypt, analogy of British policy 

applied to South Africa, 102. 
Elgin, Lord : 

Chance of improving matters in 
South Africa, 120. 

On Land Settlement and agri- 
culture in the Transvaal, 109- 
112, 126-129. 
Elgin Commission, speech on re- 
commendations of, 123-125. 
Empire, The. See British Esipirb. 
Empire Day, 1906 : entertain- 
ment of Lord Milner, and his 

speech, 117-123. 
Estate Duty, property liable to, not 

increasing, 394-396. 

Farrar, Sir George, speech at 
Navy League meeting, 66. 

Federated Malay States, import- 
ance of natural products to 
United Kingdom, 464. 

Federation of South Africa. See 
South Africa, Union of. 

Finance Bill, 1909. See Budget. 

Finance Bills, right of House of 
Lords to reject, 398-400. 

Flag-wagging, opprobrious term, 
170. 

Foreign Policy : 

Colonial share in control sug- 
gested, 311-312, 486. 



INDEX 



505 



Foreign Policy {cont. ) : 

Separation from party politics, 
484-485. 
Forests for South Africa, 86-87. 
France : 

Class feeling in, 496. 
Commercial treaty with Canada, 

201-202, 274-275. 
Lace trade with United Kingdom, 
373. 
Franchise : 

Proposed alterations in favour of 

Radical party, 446. 
Uitlanders' grievances and Bloem- 
fontein Conference, 12-16. 
Free Speech, Canadian Club prin- 
ciple of, 479-480. 
Free Trade : 

Canadian movement in favour of, 

347-348. 
Principles of Cobdenites, 240-242. 
Theory not upheld by evidence 
of facts, 195-209. 
Furse, Michael, Bishop of Pretoria, 
mention, 63. 

Gell, Mr., mention, 6. 
Geography : 

Claim to place among the sciences, 
218-220. 

Value to statecraft, 220-233. 
George, Mr. Lloyd : 

CompUcated nature of Budget of 
1909, 391-392. 

Dislike of private ownership of 
land, 397-398. 

Imperial Conference of 1907, atti- 
tude of, 183. 

Pernicious principles introduced 
by, into financial system, 407- 
410. 

Preferential rates granted by the 
Colonies, acknowledgment re- 
specting, 185, 272, 345. 
Germany : 

Commercial treaty with Canada, 
430. 

Goods supplied by, once made in 
England, 373-374. 

Hostility during Boer War, 61-62. 

Import duties, effect on British 
trade, 421-424 ; revenue from, 
445. 

Military strength, 167. 

Military system, excellent eSect 
on the nation, 124-125. 

' Wider Fatherland ' phrase, 489. 



Gladstone, W. E., relations with 
Liberal party (1873-4), 211. 

Glasgow, House of Lords and Duty, 
speech, 400-401. 

Golding, Mr. Edward, M.P., Con- 
stitutional Club dinner (1908), 
300. 

Goold-Adams, Sir Hamilton, popu- 
larity in Orange River Colony, 
95-96. 

Goschen, Mr., at farewell dinner to 
Lord Milner in 1897, 1, 2. 

Graaff Reinet, speech at, 1898, 6- 
12. 

Grocers Company, speech, 174- 
175. 

Guild of Loyal Women of Cape 
Colony, speeches to, 19-20, 26-28. 

Haldane, Lord : 

General staff of the Empire, sug- 
gestion, 326. 
National Defence Scheme, 167- 
168; references to, 154, 191. 
Halifax, Lord, resolution express- 
ing appreciation of Lord Milner's 
services, 116. 
Halifax, Canada, Canadian Club, 

speech, 478-486. 
Harcourt, Sir William : 

•Death Duty Budget' of 1894, 

391, 394, 396. 
Letter of sympathy to Lord 
Mihier in 1897, 1. 
Hardie, Mr. Keir, mention, 395. 
Het Volk : 

Nature of organisation explained, 

179-180. 
Political power, 107. 
Home Rule for Ireland : 

House of Lords' attitude, 236-237, 

447. 
In programme of Liberal party 
(1909), 430. 
Home Work, Sweated. See Sweated 

Industries. 
House of Lords : 

Arguments in iarvoxii of, 234-237. 
Budget 1909, duty of the House 
to reject, 400-401 ; infringe- 
ment of the Constitution 
charge, refutation, 402-408 ; 
speech on, 390-400. 
Charged with opposing social 

reform, refutation, 434-435. 
Clamour against (1909), 416-418, 
439, 446-447. 



506 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



House of Lords {cont.) : 

Constitution for the Transvaal 
and Orange River Colony (1906), 
speech, 93-108. 

Cost of National Service, speech, 
123-125. 

Land Settlement in South Africa, 
speeches, 109-116, 125-135. 

Land Values (Scotland) Bill, 
speech, 266-267. 

Liberal Government's proposals 
indefensible, 212-213. 

Preferential trade, speech (1908), 
267-279. 

Reform of. Imperial aspect, 453- 
459 ; Unionist policy with re- 
regard to, 447-449. 

Resolution expressing apprecia- 
tion of Lord Milner's services, 
116-117. 

Territorial and Reserve Forces 
Bill, 1907, speech, 188-195. 
Huddersfield, speech, 416-426. 
Hutchinson, Sir Walter Hely, ap- 
pointed Governor of Cape Colony, 

33. 

Immigration, colonial prejudice 

against Asiatics, causes, 296-298. 
Imperial Conference (Colonial Con- 
ference) : 

A fiasco, 238-239. 

Object of its institution, 292. 

Permanent commission in con- 
nection with, suggested, 149- 
151. 

Preferential rates, proposals re- 
jected, 183-185, 201, 239. 

Suggestions, 144-152. 

Unsympathetic attitude of British 
Government, 182-183. 
Imperialism. See iMPEEiAii Unity 

below. 
Imperial South African Association, 

speech, 279-287. 
Imperial Unity : 

Aims of a constructive statesman- 
ship, 292-300. 

Canada and, 306-310, 313-319, 
320-330, 364-365. 

Chamberlain's promotion of, 121- 
123. 

Co-operation for mutual defence, 
suggestions, 66-67, 323-327, 
369-370, 376-378. 

Comicil of the Empire, necessity 
for, 322. 



Imperial Unity {cont. ) : 

Danger of ignoring practical 

problems, 351. 
Democracy liable to be misled on 

Imperial questions, 248-249. 
Doctrines and ideals, 90-91, 138- 

152, 163, 360-364, 386-388. 
Empire Education Scheme, 171- 

173. 
Foreign policy of British Empire, 

colonial share in, 311-312, 486. 
Imperialist defined, 67. 
Increase of intercourse and its 

consequence, 479-486. 
Liberals' distrust of, 153. 
Local and Imperial politics, sever- 
ance suggested, 483-486. 
Missionaries of Empire, 263-265. 
Organisation of the Empire the 

problem of the fut\ire, 264- 

265. 
Personal ambitions of Lord 

Milner, 303. 
Policy advocated in 1897, 4-5. 
Preferential rates for the Colonies. 

See under Tariff Reform. 
Reform of the House of Lords, 

effect of, 453-459. 
Self-supplying aspect of the Em- 
pire, 463-466. 
Social reform essential to ideal, 

139-140, 250, 352-354. 
South Africa and, 19-20, 41-42, 

47-48, 182. 
Strengthening the Empire the 

root idea of Tariff Reform, 371- 

374. 
Two Empires, speech at Royal 

Colonial Institute, 289-300. 
Two objects of practical patriot- 
ism, 196-197. 
Unionist party's policy, 237-243, 

410-413. 
Urgency for, 429-430, 435-438. 
Wider patriotism ideal, 487-494. 
Import Duties : 

Consumer does not necessarily 

pay, 421-424. 
Present system of duties in favour 

of well-to-do, 158. 
Revenue derivable from, 445. 
Trade not injured by, 425. 
See also Tariff Reform. 
Income-Tax : 

Graduated, undesirable, 159-160. 
Increase during South African 

War, 420. 



INDEX 



507 



India : 

Colonial self-government not suit- 
able for, 294. 
Imperial patriotism and, 492- 

493. 
Industrial progress of, 464. 
Preferential trade and its effect 
on, 267-270. 
Industrial Law Committee : 
Indemnity Fund, 385. 
Sweated Industries Exhibition, 

speech, 253-260. 
Work of, speech, 382-386. 
Insurance Scheme, approval of 

principle, 434. 
Inter-Colonial Council (South Af- 
rica), value of, 87, 88-89. 
Invasion of United Kingdom, 

effects, 475-476. 
Ireland : 

Home Rule for, 236-237, 430, 

447. 
Lawlessness tolerated by Liberal 
Government, 212. 

Jameson, Dr., policy of his govern- 
ment, 282. 
Jenkyns, Sir Henry, 391. 
Jews, ill-treatment inilussia, speech, 

92. 
Johannesburg : 

Brilliant future possible, 54-55. 
Churchof Englandmeeting(1902), 

speech, 63-65. 
Civic banquet (1902), speech, 48- 

57. 
Farewell speech (1905), 77-91. 
Navy League meeting (1904), 

speech, 65-67. 
Mechanical Engineers' banquet, 

speech, 58. 
Resiunption of normal life advo- 
cated, 56-57. 
Transvaal Germans' Fest-Kom- 
mers, speech, 61-62. 
Jowett, Professor, on virtue of 

modesty, 1. 
Jungle, The, 356. 

Jute, Indian trade and effect of 
preferential trading, 269. 

Katanga, boundaries, 228. 
Kimberley, mineral production, 

334. 
Kitchener, Lord : 

Appointment to chief command 
in South Africa, 26. 



Kitchener, Lord (cont.) : 

Eulogy of his conduct of the Boer 

War, 58-60. 
In guerilla warfare, 48. 
Negotiations with Boer leaders 
in February 1901, 33, 34. 
Knight, E. F., definition of South 

Africa, 222. 
Kruger, President : 

Conference with Sir A. Milner at 

Bloemfontein, 12-16. 
Distrust of Conventions, 18. 



Labour members, proposal for 

Unionist Labour members, 252- 

253. 
Land Banks, formation proposed, 

450. 
Land Settlement Scheme in South 
Africa : 

Plea for, 45-47, 86. 

Policy of Liberal Government 
with regard to, speeches on, 
109-116, 125-135, 136-137. 
Land Taxes, criticism of Budget of 

1909, 393, 406, 407. 
Land Valuation, opinion on reform 

in rating, 266-267. 
Land Values (Scotland) Bill, criti- 
cism, 266-267. 
Lansdowne, Lord, Finance Bill 

amendment, 1909, 390, 402, 406, 

416. 
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid : 

On attitude of Canada to the 
Mother Coimtry, 486. 

Quoted, 41. 
Law, Mr. Bonar, at Constitutional 

Club dinner (1908), 300. 
Law, Sir Edward, on effect on 

India of preferential trade, 268. 
League of Loyal Women. See Guild 

OP Loyal Women. 
Liberal party : 

Programme (1909), criticism, 429- 
435, 446-447. 

Unsoundness on question of 
National Defence, 445-446. 
Licensing Bill, in programme of 

Liberal party (1909), 431-432. 
Liquor traffic amongst natives of 

South Africa, 22-26. 
Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, 

speech, 461-469. 
Livingstone, David, as pioneer in 

South Africa, 222-223. 



508 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



Loreburn, Lord : 

On constitutional rights of the 
House of Lords, 403-405. 

On Land Values (Scotland) Bill, 
266. 
Lovat, Lord, and land settlement in 

South Africa, 109, 125. 
Loyal Women, Guild of. See Guild 

OF Loyal Women. 
LjTie, Sir William, on the Imperial 

Conference, 184. 
Lyttelton Constitution, 93, 106-107. 
Lytton, Lord, on work of Industrial 

Law Committee, 382, 385. 

Macdonald, Slb John, national 

policy referred to, 341. 
Mackenzie, John, as a pioneer in 

South Africa, 222-223. 
Mafeking, services rendered by de- 
fenders, 21-22. 
Majuba, settlement after, referred 

to, 50. 
Manchester Conservative Club meet- 
ing, speech, 135-152. 
Mansion House meeting in aid of 
cathedral at Cape Town, speech, 
260-263. 
Maritzburg, speech, 42-44. 
Marlborough, Dxike of, preferential 
trade motion in House of Lords, 
267. 
Maude, Mr., appreciation of the 
Christian Chiirches in South 
Africa, 64. 
Maxse, Mr., on the struggle for 

existence between nations, 165. 
Midleton, Viscount, farewell dinner 

to Lord Milner (1897), 6. 
Milner, Lord : 

Afrikander Bond's attacks on, 21, 

26, 28, 29. 
Appointment as Governor of the 
Cape and High Commissioner 
for South Africa, 1. 
Appointment as Governor of the 
Transvaal and Orange Biver 
Colony, 33. 
Appreciation of services expressed 
from all quarters (1906), 116- 
117. 
Colonial Secretaryship declined 

(1903), 68. 
Conciliatory attitude in South 

Africa (1897), 6. 
Conference with Kruger at Bloem- 
fontein, 12-16. 



Description of himself as a poli- 
tical Ishmaelite, 153. 
Durban speech, 44-48. 
Empire Day speech, 1906, 117-123. 
Freedom of the city of London 

conferred on, 39. 
Grocers Company speech, 174- 

175. 
Guildhall speeches (1901 and 

1907), 39-41, 171-173. 
Highest ambition, 303. 
List of speeches. See Speeches 

AND Addresses. 
Natal visit, speeches, 42-48, 
Negotiations with Boer leaders, 

February 1901, 33, 34. 
Peerage conferred, 36. 
Reception in England, 1901, 

speech, 35-39. 
Resignation and farewell speeches 

in South Africa, 68, 77. 
Vote of censTire in House of 

Commons and protests against, 

116-117. 
Mines of South Africa : 

Chinese for. See Chinese La- 
bour. 
Depression caused by Government 

interference, 177-179. 
Productiveness, 333-336. 
State share in mineral wealth to 

be fought for, 84-85. 
Missions, influence for good, 414- 

415. 
Montaigne, quoted, 174. 
Montreal, Canadian Clubs, speeches, 

352-358, 359-365. 
Montreal Board of Trade, speech, 

341-352. 
Morley, Lord, at farewell dinner to 
Lord Milner in 1897, 1. 



Natal : 

Encouragement of settlers urged, 

45-47. 
Loyal support of Lord Milner, 42- 

44. 
Native trouble in (1906), 120. 
National Defence : 

Compulsory service for. See 

under National Service. 
Land power as well as sea power 

necessary, 367-369, 470-478. 
Unsoundness of Liberal party on, 

445-446, 
Unionist party's policy, 410, 



INDEX 



509 



National Defence {cont. ) : 

Urgency for Imperial Unity, 436- 
438. 
National Insurance Scheme, ap- 
proval of principle, 434. 
National Service : 

Arguments for, 154-155, 164-167, 
188-195, 249, 287-289, 476-478. 
Conducive to peace, 156. 
Cost of, 123-125, 190-191. 
Land power needed to secure 
naval efficiency, 367-368, 469- 
478. 
Moral qualities developed by, 155, 

170. 
Present perilous condition of the 

Empire, 365-366. 
Schemes for, discussed, 167-170. 
National Service League : 

Canterbury meeting ( 1 9 1 ) ,speech , 

469-478. 
Kensington Town Hall meeting 

(1907), speech, 164-170. 
System of universal training ad- 
vocated by, 192. 
Weybridge meeting (1908), speech, 
287-289. 
National Union of Conservatives for 
Scotland, speech at annual con- 
ference (1909), 401-413. 
Natives : 

Chinese. See Chinese Labour. 
Christian converts, accusations 

against, unjust, 414-415. 
Colonial prejudice against, Asia- 
tics, 296-298. 
Imperial patriotism and, 492-493. 
Justification for supremacy of 

white races, 24. 
Problems of the future in South 
Africa, 231-232, 298, 340-341, 
415-416. 
Report of Native Affairs Com- 
mission, appreciation, 89-90. 
Rights to be considered in schemes 
for federation of South Africa, 
286. 
Sale of intoxicating liquor to, 
speech, 22-26. 
Naturalisation : 

Restrictions made by the Trans- 
vaal Government, 13-14. 
Uniform system wanted in the 
Colonies, 328. 
Navy : 

Colonial co-operation for mutual 
defence, 66-67, 388, 485-486. 



Navy {cont. ) : 

Increase of naval estimates, 

reason for, 190-191. 
Land force necessary for effici- 
ency, 192-193, 366-368,470-478. 
Liberal Government charged with 

reducing, 160. 
Single navy for the Empire, poli- 
tical objection, 324-326. 
Navy League meeting at Johannes- 
burg, speech, 65-67. 
Newfoundland, and suggestion for 
permanent Colonial Commission, 
151. 
Newton, Lord, mention, 138. 
New Zealand, preferential rates 
granted and increase of imports, 
273. 
Nonconformists of South Africa, 

deputation, 16-19. 
North-Eastern Rhodesia, acquisi- 
tion by Rhodes, 229. 
Northern Rhodesia, importance of 
natural products to United King- 
dom, 464-465. 
North-Western Rhodesia, acquisi- 
tion by Rhodes, 229. 
Nottingham : 

Speech at (1909), 365-374. 
Trade of, and foreign competition, 
373. 
Old Age Pensions : 

Methods of obtaining money for, 

250-251. 
Necessity for a confession of na- 
tional failure, 162. 



Oliver, Mr., on general indifference 

to constitutional principles, 459. 

0ns Land, enmity to British rule, 

94. 
Orange Free State. See Orange 

River Colony below. 
Orange River Colony : 

Agriculture, development, 337- 

338. 
Constitution of 1906, speech on 

in House of Lords, 93-108. 
Disaffection in, and dangers of 
granting self-government, 95- 
101, 108. 
Injustice caused by policy of 
Liberal Government, 280-282. 
Land Settlement, policy of Lib- 
eral Government, speeches on, 
109-116, 125-135; question of 



510 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



Orange River Colony {cont. ) : 

protection of British settlers, 
115-116, 126-135, 136-137. 
Liquor law, 25. 

Nonconformist deputation urging 
annexation, reply, 16-19. 
Ottawa, Canadian Club, speech, 

330-341. 
Oxford, Sweated Industries Ex- 
hibition, speech, 253-260. 
Oxford Union, debate on Imperial 

Unity recalled, 4. 
Oxford University, raising of funds 
for, speech, 173-174. 

Parker, Sir Gilbert, work for the 

Imperial South African Associa- 
tion, 285. 
Party Government : 

Imperial politics and, suggestions, 
483-485. 

What it means, 428-429. 
Patriotism : 

Imperialist ideal, 489-494. 

Local not inconsistent with Im- 
perial, 19-20. 

Meaning of, 489-490. 

Measure of well-being necessary 
to develop, 353-354. 
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham. See 

Chatham, Earl of. 
Politics, Local and Imperial, speech, 

478-486. 
Poole, speech at, 388-390. 
Poor Law Reform, Tariff Reform as 

an aid to, 301. 
Portsmouth, Lord, and Territorial 

and Reserve Forces Bill, 188, 191. 
Preferential trade. See Tabitp Re- 
form. 
' Premier ' mine, 334. 
Pretoria, farewell speech, 68-77. 
Pro-Boers : 

Attacks on Lord Milner, 116. 

Attitude to policy of Liberal 
Government, 97. 

Fear of agitation in England at 
the Cape, 33. 

Futility of their counsels, 50-53. 

Queen's Hall, Langham Place, 
speech, 92. 

Radical Party, anti-patriotic, 217. 
Railways : 

Amalgamation projects in South 
Africa, 87-89. 



Railways (cont.) : 

Church Railway Mission speech, 

163-164. 
Construction in Crown Colonies, 

466. 
Influence on South Africa, 226- 

228, 229-230, 331-332. 
Reduction of rates in South Africa, 

unwise, 83-84. 
Reforms by the Inter-Colonial 
Council, 88. 
Ramsgate, speech at missionary 

meeting, 413-416. 
Recreation grounds for children, 

355. 
Redmond, Mr., position and policy 

of, 458, 459. 
Religious toleration, necessity in 

South Africa, 64-65. 
Reynolds, Stephen, on growth of 

class feeling, 495-496. 
Rhodes, Cecil : 

Extension of British power and 
territory in Africa, 222-223, 
228-230. 
Opinion on the native question, 
89. 
Rhodesia : 

Acquisition by Rhodes, 229. 
Importance of natviral products 

to United Kingdom, 464-465. 
Mineral wealth, 334. 
Problems of government, 230-233. 
Roberts, Lord : 

Compulsory Tservice advocated 
by, and reasons for, 189-190, 
191. 
Co-operation of Lord Milner in 
National Defence schemes, 154. 
Courage of his opinions, 169. 
Elgin Commission motion, 123. 
Eulogy of, 59-60. 
Robson, Lord, on naturalisation 
restrictions of Transvaal Govern- 
ment, 14. 
Rosebery, Lord : 

Letter of sympathy to Lord 

Milner in 1897, 1. 
On the elder Pitt, 121-122. 
Question as to Unionist policy on 
Reform of the House of Lords, 
447-448. 
Mention, 154. 
Royal Colonial Institute, speech, 

289-300. 
Royal Scottish Geographical Society, 
inaugural address, 218-233. 



INDEX 



511 



Rugby Unionist Association, speech, 
243-253. 

Russia, protest against ill-treat- 
ment of the Jews in, 92. 



Salisbury, Marchioness or, at 
Industrial Law Committee meet- 
ing (1909), 382. 

Salisbury, Robert Cecil, third mar- 
quis : 
Relations with his party, 211. 
On bond between the Mother 

Country and a colony, 95. 
Welcome to Lord Milner in 1901, 
35. 

Salt River Railway Works, reply to 
workmen's deputation, 20-22. 

Scots, as settlers and adminis- 
trators, 238, 412-413. 

Scottish Geographical Society, 
Royal, inaugural address, 218- 
233. 

Scottish Land Bill, House of Lords 
accused of rejecting, refutation, 
235-236. 

Seems So, by Stephen Reynolds, 
495. 

Selborne, Lord : 

Letter on South African Land 

Settlement, quoted, 129. 
Paper on Mutual Relations of 
British South African Colonies, 
220. 

Shadwell, Dr., on the German mili- 
tary system, 124-125. 

Shaftesbury, A. Ashley Cooper, 
Earl of, factory legislation re- 
ferred to, 434. 

Shipping, effect of Tariff Reform on, 
442-443. 

Single Chamber system of govern- 
ment, meaning and dangers of, 
427-433, 458-459. 

Small-holdings, fiscal measures ne- 
cessary for success, 300-301. 

Smuts, Mr., Colonial Secretary of 
the Transvaal : 
On financial difficulties of the 

Transvaal Government, 176. 
On union of South Africa, 285. 

Socialism : 

Different meanings attached to, 

214-215. 
Noble form of, 161. 
Panacea for class antagonism, 496- 
497. 



Social Reform : 

Duty of Unionists, 249-250. 

Effect of Tariff Reform, 241-243, 
300-302. 

Imperialistic ideals inclusive of, 
139-140, 352-354. 

Industrial Law Committee's work, 
382-386. 

Liberal party's vague programme 
(1909), 432-435. 

Methods for removing class anta- 
gonism suggested, 496-500. 

Revenue necessary for, to be 
obtained by Tariff Reform, 
245. 

Women's influence needed, 354- 
358. 
Soudan : 

Civil Service, 467. 

Importance of natural products 
to United Kingdom, 464-465. 

Railway construction, 466. 
South Africa : 

Afforestation, plea for, 86-87. 

Agriculture, development of after 
the war, 87, 336-338, 468. 

Anti-Asiatic prejudice, 297. 

Canada compared with, 330- 
341. 

Church of England in, speech, 63- 
65. 

Church Railway Mission, speech, 
163-164. 

Development, 78, 332-341, 468. 

Economic condition of the Trans- 
vaal, its importance to, 101- 
106. 

Em-opean colonisation directed 
by geographical conditions, 
225-226. 

Imperial \inity a solution of pro- 
blems, 91, 182. 

Intellectual and moral improve- 
ment predicted (1900), 21-22. 

Land Settlement Scheme, plea 
for, 86 ; policy of Liberal 
Government, speeches, 109-116, 
125-135, 136-137. 

Liberal Government's policy, pro- 
tests against, 93-108, 119-121, 
175-182, 248, 280-282. 

Methods of assisting discussed, 
283-287. 

Mineral wealth, 333-336. 

Money granted to Colonies by 
British Government, 134-135. 

Natives. See Natives. 



512 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



South Africa {cont.) : 

Native territories beyond the 
Zambesi, futxire problem, 298. 

Pacification, policy, 50-53, 144. 

Patriotism and Imperialism, 19- 
20. 

Physical characteristics and their 
relation to statecraft, 221-233. 

Rhodes's acquisition of territory, 
228-230. 

Settlers, encouragement urged, 
46-47. 

Union of : geographical condi- 
tions an argument for, 220- 
221 ; necessity of co-operation, 
44, 47-48, 285-286 ; natives' 
rights to be considered, 286 ; 
possibiUty of, 41-42 ; pro- 
blems, 231-233, 339-341 ; use 
of term ' our country,' 58. 
South African Constabulary, value 

of, 87-88. 
South African Field Force, eulogy, 

59-60. 
South African Republic. See 

Transvaal. 
South African War. See Boer 

War. 
Southern Central Africa, interaction 

of geographical and political in- 
fluences, 223-225. 
Southern Rhodesia : 

Acquisition, 229. 

Problems of government, 230-231, 
232. 
Speeches and Addresses, list of : 

Afrikander Bond, warning to, at 
GraaS Reinet, 6-12. 

Army and Lord Kitchener, Jo- 
hannesburg (1902), 58-60. 

Authors Club, Empire Citizenship 
(1912), 487-494. 

British Settlers in South Africa, 
House of Lords (1906), 125- 
135. 

Budget of 1909, 390-400, 400-401, 
401-413. 

Cape Town Cathedral building 
fund (1907), 260-263. 

Church in South Africa, Johannes- 
burg (1902), 63-65. 

Church's Work abroad, Ramsgate 
(1909), 413-416. 

Civic Receptions at Cape Town, 32- 
35, 41-42. 

'Communis Patria' at Compa- 
triots Club (1909), 386-388. 



Speeches and Addresses (cont.) : 

Constructive Policy, Guildford 
(1907), 209-217. 

Crown Colonies, Liverpool (1910), 
461-469. 

Durban (1901), 44-48. 

Eating up Capital, Bristol (1909), 
380-381. 

Empire Day (1906), 116-123. 

Farewell speeches in South Africa, 
68-77, 77-91. 

Geography and Statecraft, Edin- 
biorgh (1907), 218-233. 

Grocers Company, 174-175. 

Guildhall (1901 and 1907), 39-41, 
171-173. 

Guild of Loyal Women (1900), 19- 
20, 26-28. 

Imperialism and Social Reform, 
Montreal (1908), 352-358. 

Imperialism, the creed of, Man- 
chester (1906), 135-152. 

Imperial Organisation, Compa- 
triots Club (1910), 452-461. 

Imperial South African Associa- 
tion (1908), 279-287. 

Imperial Unity (1908 and 1909), 
302-310, 310-319, 320-330, 359- 
365, 427-438. 

Industrial Law Committee's Work, 
382-386. 

Jews, ill-treatment in Russia, 
92. 

Johannesburg ( 1902), guerilla war- 
fare, 48-57. 

Land Settlement in South Africa 
(1906), 109-116, 125-135. 

Land Values (Scotland) Bill (1908), 
266-267. 

Local and Imperial Politics, Hali- 
fax, Canada, 478-486. 

Maritzbiu-g (1901), 42-44. 

Missionaries of Empire, United 
Empire Club (1907), 263-265. 

National Service, 123-125, 164- 
170, 188-195, 287-289, 365-374, 
469-478. 

Nonconformists of Cape Colony, 
reply, 16-19. 

Organised Empire and the Navy, 
Johannesburg (1904), 65-67. 

Oxford University, funds for, 173- 
174. 

Preferential Trade (1908), 267- 
279, 341-352. 

Preparation against War, Bath 
(1909), 374-380. 



INDEX 



613 



Speeches and Addresses {coni.) : 
Reception in London (1901), 35- 

39. 
Sale of Intoxicating Liquor to 

Natives (1900), 22-26. 
Salt Eiiver Workmen's Deputa- 
tion, 20-21. 
Single Chamber Government 
i: (1909), 427-438. 

South Africa and the Consolida- 
tion of the Empire, York, 175- 
188. 

South African appointment, fare- 
well dinner, London, 1-6. 

South African development, 
Ottawa, 330-341. 

South African Railway Mission 
(1907), 163-164. 

South Africa ' our country,' 
Johannesburg (1902), 58. 

Sweated Industries, Oxford, 253- 
260. 

Tariff Reform, 195-209, 267- 
279, 300-302, 341-352, 388- 
390. 

Taxing the Foreigner, Hudders- 
field (1909), 416-426. 

Territorial and Reserve Forces 
Bill (1907), 188-195. 

Toynbee Hall (1912), 494-500. 

Transvaal and Orange River 
Colonies (1906), 93-108. 

Transvaal Germans' Fest-Kom- 
mers, Johannesburg (1902), 61- 
62. 

Two Conflicting PoUeies, 416-426, 
438-451. 

Two Empires, Royal Colonial In- 
stitute, 289-300. 

Uitlander grievances as discussed 
at Bloemfontein Conference, 
12-16. 

Unionists and Social Reform, 
Rugby, 243-253. 

Unionists and the Empire, Edin- 
burgh, 234-243. 

Worcester Congress Resolutions, 
28-32. 
Steyn, ex-President of Orange Free 
State : 

Disaffection to British rule fo- 
mented by, 96, 

Hostile attitude to British settlers, 
125. 

Mention, 54. 
Stirling, House of Lords and the 

Budget, speech, 401-413. 



Stockport, urgency of Imperial 
Unity, speech, 427-438. 

Surrey Liberal Unionist Associa- 
tion, speech, 209-217. 

Sweated Industries : 

Definition of sweating, 253. 
Loss to the community from, 254- 

255. 
Wages Boards as a remedy, 255- 
260. 

Sybil, by Lord Beaconsfield, sub- 
title The Two Nations, 495. 



Tariff Reform : 

Charge of adding to the burden 
of the poor refuted, 208-209. 

Cheapness not everything, 198- 
199. 

Misrepresentations of opponents, 
244-247. 

Moderate all-round tariff, 204- 
207. 

National aspect of policy, 196-209, 
389-390. 

National production a vital point, 
199, 371. 

National security aided by, 300- 
302. 

Policy of Unionist party, 243-244, 
410-413, 439-445, 449, 459- 
461. 

Preferential trade with the Colo- 
nies, advantage to Mother 
country, 201-204, 207, 270-279 ; 
alleged injury to India, 267- 
270 ; counterbalance to foreign 
competition, 424-426 ; import- 
ance attached to by colonial 
Imperialists, 145-151, increase 
of goodwill from, not ill-feeling, 
277-278 ; principles involved 
in, and reasons for, 184-188, 
239-243, 341-352 ; proposals at 
Imperial Conference rejected, 
183-185, 201, 239; saving 
policy for the Empire, 378- 
380. 
Scheme for, discussed, 156-160. 
Strengthening the Empire the 

root idea, 371-374. 
Unsoundness of theory of Free 
Trade, 195-209. 
Tariff Reform Commission, experi- 
mental scale of duties, 246. 
Tariff Reform League, speeches, 
195-209, 365-374. 



2k 



514 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 



Taxation : 

Limit to imposition of new taxes, 

380-381, 406-410. 
See aiao Import Duties, Income 
Tax, Tabiff Reform, etc. 
Tea Duty, apprehended loss on re- 
jection of Finance Bill, 398-399. 
Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill, 

speech, 188-195. 
Toronto, speech (1908), 320-330. 
Toynbee Hall : 

Class feeling, speech, 494-500. 
Ideas of its founder, 499-500. 
Transvaal : 

Administration, constant criticism 

deprecated, 70-77. 
Afforestation, need for, 86-87. 
Agriculture, improvement, 109- 

110, 337-338. 
Cape Colony's sympathy with, in 

1898, 6-11. 
Causes of unrest in 1898, 10-11. 
Chinese Labour question, 93, 104- 

106, 137-138, 176-178. 
Condition in January 1902, 48-49. 
Constitution of 1905, loyal ac- 
ceptance urged, 80-82. 
Constitution of 1906, speech on, 

93-108. 
Economic development import- 
ant to South Africa, 101-106. 
Geographical position and 

Rhodes's fear of, 228-229. 
Germans' Feat-Kommers, speech 

at, 61-62. 
Illicit liquor traffic a scandal, 25- 

26. 
Improvement of Boer Govern- 
ment since the war, 283. 
Land Settlement policy, 109-116, 

125-135, 136-137. 
Liberal Government's policy and 

its results, 175-182, 280 282. 
Mineral wealth, 333. 
Navy (British), contribution to, 

advocated, 66-67. 
Nonconformist deputation urging 

annexation, 16-19. 
Public works accomplished in 

1905, 75-76. 
Self-government for, 78-80, 179- 

181. 
Uitlanders' grievances and Bloem- 

fontein Conference, 12-16. 
War with. See Boer Wae. 
Tropical Medicine, schools of, estab- 
lishment, 462. 



Tunbridge Wells, Tariff Reform 
speech, 195-209. 

UlTLAJSTDBRS : 

Grievances and Bloemfontein 

Conference, 12-16. 
Kruger's statement respecting 

petition in favour of Transvaal 

Government, 14. 
Petition to Great Britain, 12. 
Unionist Party : 

Relations with Mr. Balfour, 210- 

211. 
Imperial policy, 237-243, 438. 
Need for a constructive policy, 

213-217. 
Programme, 1909, 410-413, 438- 

451. 
Reform of House of Lords policy, 

447-449. 
Relinquishment of Tariff Reform 

suggested, 243-244, 459-461. 
Social Reform policy, 249-253. 
Tariff Reform policy, 410-412, 

439-445, 451. 
Unionist Labour members sug- 
gested, 252-253. 
United Empire Club, speech, 263- 

265. 
United States of America : 
Canadian trade with, 347. 
National unity, how acquired, 

143. 
Progress under Protection, 426. 
Universities Settlement Association, 
object of, 494-495. 

VANCOtJVEB, Speech at Canadian 
Club, 302-310. 

Van Riebeeck, settlement in Cape 
Colony, 226. 

Vereeniging, treaty of, free grant of 
money under terms of, 134. 

Victoria, Australia, Wages Boards, 
and result of operations, 259. 

VolTcstem, Transvaal newspaper, 
interpretation of Britain's gener- 
ous policy, 181. 

Wages Boards, establishment pro- 
posed, 255-260, xlii. 
War: 

Boer War. See that title. 
Nation's influence dependent on 
fighting strength, 307-308, 374- 
376. 



INDEX 



515 



War {cont. ) : 

Preparation against, methods to 

be adopted, 374-378. 
See also National Defence. 

Ware, Fabian, on class feeling in 
France, 496. 

Webb, Mr., India and the Empire 
referred to, 268. 

Welby, Lord, on rejection of Finance 
Bill, 398. 

West Africa : 

Development of Crown Colonies, 

462-465. 
Railway construction, 466. 

Westminster, Dulie of, entertain- 
ment to the Imperial South 
African Association, 279. 

West of Scotland Unionist Associa- 
tion, Glasgow speech, 400-401. 

Weybridge, speech, 287-289. 

Wheat, proposal to impose duty on 
foreign wheat, 185. 

White, Sir George, at entertain- 
ment to Lord Milner on Empire 
Day (1906), 117. 

Winnipeg, Canadian Club, speech, 
310-319. 



Witwatersrand, mineral wealth, 

333-334. 
Wolverhampton, Lord, mention, 

267. 

Wolverhampton, speech at, 152- 
163. 

Women, influence in social work 
needed, 354-358. 

Women's Canadian Club, Montreal, 
speech, 352-358. 

Worcester Congress Resolutions : 
Speech on, 29-32. 
Text of, 28-29. 

Worker and his Country, by Fabian 
Ware, 496. 

Workers Educational Association, 
a power in the land, 498. 

Working classes, gain to, from Tariff 
Reform, 389-390. 

Wyatt, H. F., Navy League meet- 
ing at Johannesburg, 65. 

Wyndham, Mr. George, at in- 
augural dinner of United Empire 
Club, 263. 

Yorkshire Liberal Unionist As- 
sociation, speech, 175-188. 



Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
at the Edinburgh University Press 



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